Letting the Days Go By, Part 2

(If you haven't read part 1, this will make less sense)

My cards lay in their plastic sleeves gathering dust in my parents' house for 5 or 6 years until I needed a better guitar than that crappy white Ibanez with the Heavy Metal whammy bar and remembered them. AHA! Cardboard for pickups seemed like a great trade. I borrowed my sister's car (this is a long story that I'm not going to go into, but, yes, I'm still bitter), got them out of my old room's closet, and headed down to the local card shop.

I figured, after a quick tally, that I had maybe $1000 in cards. Here is when I learned:

Life Lesson #1:

Everything is worth exactly and only what someone else will pay for it!

The shop owner quickly flipped through the book, his eyes lighting up once or twice and told me I'd give you $100.

Holy shit say what?

Really? For which ones?

For the lot. You have some decent stuff here, but I have doubles and triples on most of it.

But... but... the book says -

The book doesn't mean anything, kid. Hundred and a quarter is best I'll do for you.

So, I went staggering out with my cards under my arm. Was I going to have to get a job to buy a guitar? The horror. I tried another shop in a different neighborhood, and got more or less the same spiel. However, at this second shop, on the way out, a guy about my age stepped outside when I did and started a conversation.

Man, you don't want to sell your cards to a shop. That's the worst money you'll ever see.

Oh. Okay. So, where do you sell cards, then?
(note: this is in the ancient pre-Internet era. There was no Ebay, no Craigslist, no nuthin).

I know a lot of people. Let's go sit down and check it all out. I live around the corner.

So, idiotically, I followed. We sat in his apartment and he went through the book, more enthusiastically than the store owners, and told me that he knew some guys who would for sure buy them, so just leave them with him, and he'd sell them for me and take 10% commission. This leads me to:

Life Lesson #2:

Don't Be Such a Fucking Idiot, Golden!

Yes, it's true: I left my property with a random stranger. I guess I figured I know where the guy lived, and it really never occurred to me that someone could be a complete slimeball. I'm too honest myself to believe that other people can behave that way. Or something like that. In any case, yes, this does prove what many of you have said to me over the years about my relative intelligence, and yes, this motherfucker did in fact leave town with my stuff. I called him a million times, never got any response, and headed over there, probably on day 3. He was completely moved out and the manager of the complex had no forwarding info. Line disconnected the next day. Game over. That stung.

So, as for LL#2, I think I did learn to not be so trusting, and "I'm never letting someone steal my baseball cards again" has been one of my internal catch phrases. Whenever presented with an opportunity to further prove how completely detached from reality I am, I have pictured my card's stealer riding off into the sunset laughing maniacally (Moo-A-HA-HA-HA!), and have (on most occasions), not taken the absolute stupidest choice.

As for Life Lesson #1 - I applied this to selling my first house in Portland. The buying agent told my selling agent that his clients wouldn't pay our asking price, because the the comparable houses in the neighborhood hadn't sold at that price. Show me the comps, he evidently told my agent. I quickly reflected upon LL #1 and told my agent that he could suggest to his counterpart that he shove the comps up his ass. We got asking.

Come to think of it, I can't remember where I got the money for my better guitar...