Sorry in advance, this is a rant. Nothing more, nothing less, just a plain old rant about people, and rudeness.
I have a small
catamaran, which I am TRYING to give away.
It's about 9 feet long, it floats, and it
sails pretty well actually. Not going to win any races, but the sort of thing a kid could learn to sail on. I know, my son learned to sail on it and he had fun.
It was given to us, so I believe the right thing is to hand it on, free of charge to the next person. I've done a bit of
work on it, patched some
leaks, replaced some ropes, no great cost or effort, just my contribution to keep it serviceable, so on to the next young
family of maybe-sailors.
So I placed an ad on gumtree (an online Aussie site, not sure if they have it in other countries, probably not, given the name and all... maybe in
California...?) The ad said, free
boat, gave a good description and some photos and says I would like to give it to a
family with
kids who want to learn to sail.
Within minutes of placing the ad, the SMS messages start. The first message was a bit... er... strange, but seemed to indicate that some young person and their brother were interested, so I texted back, saying yes, still available, call me for more info.
Nothing.
OK, whatever, maybe the remembered they can't swim, or they don't understand the
concept of a
phone call vs text message.. you know... young people.
Anyway, didn't have to wait long for the next call. He phoned, seemed quite nice, had
kids, just the thing to teach them to sail... etc etc... but... not actually sure when he could collect it. OK, fine by me, but please understand that if someone else is keen to collect it now, they get first dibs. Sure, no probs.
Ten minutes more, and, a lady, with a young girl just getting into sailing, they can come and collect it in a few hours, they are on their way "now". Fine, great. Text the other guy, sorry,
boat now taken. Go to gumtree, cancel the ad, all done.
Except it is not all done. Three more people
phone me asking about the boat, must take a minute for the ad to clear or something. Plus there are a flood of emails in my inbox.
The first guy phoned me... well... what can I say? I had to ask after a minute... "er.. you do actually have kids... right?" No, but he saw that it was free, so he figured he'd get it. And he was really annoyed as he'd just missed out on a free jacuzi. Ye gods, was this guy for real? Politely informed him it was gone.
Then another text message... nope, still can't
work out WHAT they were trying to say with that one, but whatever it was, it was highly abbreviated and TOTALLY indecipherable. Sorry, couldn't even work out if they wanted the boat or if they were offering some kind of
service.
Pass.
Then one more, reasonably coherent text, to which I replied that, sadly, the boat was gone.
Or so I thought...
The afternoon wears on, no sign of the lady coming to collect the boat. I give her an extra couple of hours then text her asking for an ETA. Nothing.... Meanwhile, the boat is out on the front lawn, it is getting late, and I am going have to open up the garage and lug the whole lot back inside soon. Finally, at 9:30pm, a text from the lady telling me she had
trailer problems. Right, she worked this out at 9:30pm? Three hours to figure out she had
trailer problems. Yeah, sure..
Right, bugger that, the first guy gets first choice after that little bit of non communication. So I text him, would he like it, it is now available. Nothing. OK, it's late, maybe he turns his phone off at night. Good idea. I should do that too, no annoying message from people who are too rude to tell me they are going to be late, or not come at all.
The next day, no response by lunchtime... hmm... what to do. So work my way back through the list of people and emails from the day before.
NOT ONE RESPONSE ALL DAY.
Sorry, but are these people ASLEEP? There are some time differences in
Australia, and hour here or there (and about 50 years behind in the case of Adelaide, but I can say that, I live here and I love it.) But wake up people, check your messages. Besides, I am pretty sure each of these people would have worked out that travelling across
Australia for a free
catamaran is poor value, so they have to be LOCAL... right?
So bugger it. Next time I have something to give away, I am going to dump it on the street with a sign saying "free to a good home" and wash my hands of it.
Thanks for listening.
RANT=OFF
Matt