Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Mon, 14 Jan 2008

And it is gone

With amazing speed, the awful minivan has left my life. That's what ya get when you post things for far below their apparent value on Craigslist, I guess.

In all, I had about 6 people call or email on it, and fully half of them didn't understand that it had a broken head gasket. The guy who actually bought it was the first person to call me last night, who stood me up this morning when he was supposed to come look at it.

So, note to self when posting to Craigslist: assume a 2nd grade reading level, and ADD on the part of the reader. Bulleted lists are the order of the day.

But at least it's gone.

Posted at 20:34 permanent link category: /misc

Craigslist shoppers: not so literate

So, my $1000 Previa has generated a surprising amount of interest. In the last 12 hours, I've had four contacts (and possibly more in email that I haven't looked at yet).

The first one, and the most literate so far, was someone who wanted to come see it. He'll be here in the next hour or two. No real problems, although he managed to call when I was outside near traffic, and between the traffic noise and his accent, he was a little hard to understand.

The second was perhaps the most hilarious in his in ability to use written language. His email to me read:

  hi there
  do u still hv your van
  i hv the money and will buy it and will buy it,

No further comment necessary.

The third started to illustrate the "can't really read" trend, when I got a phone call that went like this:

Him: Hey, I'm calling about the Previa, is it still available?

Me: Yeah, although I've got someone coming to look at it tomorrow morning.

Him: Ok. How many miles on it?

Me: [thinking: "That was in the ad 3 times"] ... two hundred thousand.

Him: [aside, off the phone] Two hundred thousand, I told you. [back to me] And does it have any problems, with the engine, or the transmission or anything?

Me: [now seriously questioning his ability to read] Did you read the ad?

Him: Not the whole thing, no.

Me: Well, it has a broken head gasket, although everything else is in pretty good shape.

Him: Oh. Really? Ok, well, thanks. [click]

Now, in the second paragraph of the ad, I state very clearly that it has a broken head gasket (actual phrase: "a gaping hole in the head gasket"). In the third paragraph, I explain that this van needs an owner who wants to install a new engine, and I go on to explain about what that would cost for a moderately skilled backyard mechanic.

The next call was perhaps the weirdest. I tend to take a long time to wake up, so I had specified, right next to my phone number, that callers should limit themselves to 9 am to 10 pm calling hours. Naturally, the phone rang this morning at 8:27 am. I should have been awake, but wasn't really.

I asked him, "Did you read the ad?" and went on to check his reading comprehension. He had in fact read the ad (and knew about the head gasket, most importantly), but had somehow missed the fact that those numbers after the phone number might have meant anything.

Clearly, I overestimate Craigslist shoppers. Next time, I'll just list everything in bullet-point form. Perhaps I'll rmv mst vwls just so it looks more like what they're apparently used to.

Posted at 09:02 permanent link category: /misc

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.