I was trying to sell a floor lamp. A simple Craigslist ad was placed under “furniture,” offering a $20 lamp.

Buyer: A woman with a strong foreign accent and broken English calls and leaves a message. We end up playing phone tag for 2 days. She then enthusiastically reaches me and agrees to come over and pay $20.

The Purchase: She calls me from her cell when she gets downstairs and asks me to bring it out. (A mistake on her part, in my view, since that didn’t give her a chance to test it). Anyways, I bring it down. Her daughter gets out of the driver’s seat of the car and speaks perfect English. We try to fit it into her car and have some difficulty.

She pauses and says “don’t worry, I’ll get it in, how much is it?”

“$20.” (I was very annoyed by the mere question. For more, see Craigslist and profitable frustration).

“Oh. Um. Really? Well, there are lots of ads on Craigslist for $5 lamps.”

“Maybe so, but this one is $20.”

“Oh. Would you take $10?”

“No.”

“Well, I have $15 on me so if that’s not enough, I’ll understand if you want to sell it to someone else.”

“Fine. Give me $15.”

Normally I wouldn’t give in to this academy award winning bullshiting performance but I was moving and couldn’t be bothered to place another ad.