The Deal of the Century

So, there I was, putting six million miles on my car, driving all over the place yesterday buying used snowboard boots. You see, we have a thirteen-year-old, Son Number Three.

The next time you come across a thirteen-year-old boy, have them sit down for a few minutes and observe their feet. You can actually see them growing. If you can keep them still long enough, you’ll witness their toes popping right out the front of the pair of sneakers their parents bought a week ago.

Over this past year and a half I have been slowly but surely outfitting all three boys with boards, boots, and helmets so that I never have to fill out another ski rental form, hopefully for the rest of my life. If you are willing to do the searching, and you get lucky, you can get almost brand-new gear for less than a few rental fees.

Yesterday was going well, and I was able to score one pair of boots that will fit Son Number Three now, and one pair that will fit him fifteen minutes from now. I was back home in the afternoon and very tired of driving. I plopped down on the couch and got on Facebook Marketplace one last time to check the listing on a pair of his old boots I was selling, that his growing toes, luckily, had not rendered useless.

Then I saw a listing I hadn’t seen that morning.

“$40, Auburn, CA. K2 snowboard, Salomon bindings, size 11.5 boots, helmet, gloves.”

Huh? $40? For which thing? He’s listing everything at once. For $40? That can’t be right. Let me read that again…

OK, so it shows a picture of all the stuff. The boots are even strapped into the bindings… it isn’t saying anything about separate sales. Just lists everything and says $40…

This can’t be right… Let me just text this guy… and then I saw it. “Listed 26 minutes ago.”

Oh, holy crap! This is brand new. This just showed up. No one has seen it yet. This could be for real!

Auburn is 18 miles from my house, right up I-80.

Me on Facebook messaging app – “Hi Larry, is this package still available?”

Immediate response from Larry, which is unheard of on Facebook Marketplace – “Yes.”

OK, OK, play it cool, man. Don't spook him... “Great. Is there any chance you're available right now? I happen to have some time right now and can jump in the car right now.”

I would have left my own open-heart surgery to get in the car. For those of you who don’t ski or snowboard, allow me to explain. What I was looking at in the picture was no less than $1000 worth of gear, purchased new. Sold used at reasonable prices on Facebook Marketplace, it was anywhere from $200 to $400 worth of gear.

I didn’t even want the snowboard. I wanted the bindings, maybe, but it was really just the principle of the whole thing. And if the boots really were a men’s 11.5, Son Number Three would probably be able to use them sometime next week.

I hit send on the text and then endured five minutes of agony.

Larry – “Yes, let me know when you're getting in the car and I'll text you my address.”

Why the hell wouldn’t you just tell me your address now?!? OK, OK, remain calm. Play it cool…

Me – [already in the car and doing 90 mph toward Auburn] “OK, great. Just getting in the car now. What's your address? No big deal. It's all good. Everything is cool and casual. Totally all good and cool.”

Larry – [sends me address]

Me – [has minor in-car early celebration dance-a-thon as I type the address into Google maps while punching it up past the triple-digit mark.] Kids, don’t try this at home, but I honestly figured if I got pulled over, I could show the cop what was happening and probably get a code-three police escort the rest of the way.

Eighteen miles and three minutes later I slid around the corner onto Larry’s street and then forced myself to slow down and drive like everything was cool. I pulled up to Larry’s house very calmly and casually, and did my best not to sprint to the door.

Larry came out of the house to meet me, carrying everything that was in the picture, all hooked together in one big bundle. Sure enough, it was a K2 snowboard ($500 new), big enough for Number Three to grow into, Salomon bindings ($300) that were perfect for me, Burton Moto boots ($250) that really were a men’s 11.5, an XL helmet ($100) that will actually fit one of our XL heads, and a pair of Burton gloves ($40), just for fun.

Stay calm. Everything is cool…

“This looks great, Larry. I think this will work for my youngest son.”

“Well, it was my son’s stuff, but he shattered his heel jumping off the roof of a church,” said Larry, with some obvious residual disgust regarding the incident still showing on his face.

“Wow, no kidding.” Your son sounds smart…

“Yep, so he hasn’t used any of it in a few years.”

“Oh, wow, that’s too bad.” Your son isn’t home right now, is he? He can’t be OK with this price…

“I don’t know too much about this stuff,” said Larry, “but it all looks like it will still work for your son.”

“Yep, I think it will.” Deep breaths. Remain calm…

**moment of truth** “So, you said $40?” I asked, very cool, calm, and casual.

“Yep,” said Larry.

Me, reaching into my pocket while trying not to scream, “Holy crap!”

“Here you go.” OK, well, I should go before your son hobbles out here swinging a crutch and yelling NOOOOOO!!!

“We’re actually moving to North Carolina soon,” said Larry.

OK, great. Please just take these two twenties from me so I can run to my car and drive away before anyone inside your house realizes what you’ve done... “Wow. Good for you. Good luck with the move and safe travels.”

“Thanks,” said Larry, claiming his prize money. “You too.”

My travels will be a lot safer once I’m done sliding out of your neighborhood and back on the freeway and I’m sure your son isn’t chasing after me… “Thanks. I’d better get back. Take care.”

Just walk casually back to the car… Don’t run… Be cool… OK, start the car…

[sound of my screeching tires]

What a thrill! I think I finally understand the extreme couponing phase my wife went through a long time ago, when we ended up with twenty-six bottles of ranch dressing for seventeen cents. It wasn’t that we needed any ranch dressing, it was that it only cost seventeen cents. She knew how much it would cost retail and simply couldn’t leave that ranch dressing on the shelf.

I get it now, honey! And you’ll be happy to know the boys are all set for this winter.

Assuming we can keep them off the church roof.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Soap

My wife has been couponing. This is a new sport for shoppers involving laying out thousands of dollars on ranch dressing and ketchup, because the price was so low, “it was practically free,” and then giving them away to friends and family because you ended up with five hundred bottles of each. She swears to me that we are saving money by stocking up on things we don’t need, but I remain skeptical.

One item in particular became a point of contention recently. She came home with six big squeeze bottles of “Men’s Hair and Body Wash.” I asked her why in the world she had bought me liquid body wash, to which she answered the typical coupon addict’s response of, “It was so cheap, they were practically giving it away.”

My main problem with that recurring answer is that there is a certain amount of money between “actually” and “practically” when it comes to giving things away at the store.

She then told me that she planned to stop buying bar soap for the shower. I was to immediately begin washing myself with liquid “Energy Wash” that would “Recharge and Energize without Drying.” (With mint extracts!). I politely explained that that was not going to happen, and she should return the bushel of body wash to the store. She calmly informed me about the coupon return policy restrictions, and politely inquired as to why I was such a stubborn jackass. I told her that my bar soap worked just fine, and then went on to state my case about how I don’t think we’re actually saving money when she buys things we don’t need, just because they are on sale. She didn’t see it my way.

After a few days and approximately three hundred requests from my wife for me to “try the damn body wash,” I gave in.

One of my main objections to using body wash was that I didn’t want to have to use her weird looking, pink, loofa-like, spongy, spidery, half-sandpaper/half-shammy-cloth thing-a-ma-jig that hangs on a rope from our shower handle. It looks like someone tied a pink fishnet into a knot the size of a grapefruit, and the only thing it does is collect shockingly cold water and dead skin cells. Besides being disgusting, it is a tool that I just don’t want to have to use.

I like bar soap. Bar soap is ingenious. You pick it up and use it, and when it disappears you know it’s time for a new one. It is self-cleaning, and there are no appurtenances, tools, holders, delivery containers, devices, or spongy loofa things. It’s just you and the soap. Simple.

She listened calmly to my hesitations about using her squishy pink bacteria farm-on-a-rope, then she rolled her eyes and explained - in the same voice she uses when she is helping one of our children figure out a ridiculously simple problem - that I obviously did not need to use her bath sponge. I could just squirt the body wash into my hand, and proceed to soap myself up. Since the body wash was apparently un-returnable, I gave in and told her I would give it a try. She thanked me profusely in the same voice she uses to thank police officers for speeding tickets.

The next morning, it was go time. I hopped into the shower, strangely enthusiastic about my new cleansing adventure. Maybe I would love the body wash. Maybe I would discover a whole new world of instant morning refreshment. It was, after all, “energy” wash that promised to “recharge and energize” me through the deft and patented use of non-drying mint extracts.

Here’s how my body wash experience went:
1) Grabbed bottle of energizing body wash from shower caddy.
2) Unscrewed the large blue bottle top on the squeeze bottle and stared down into the ¾” diameter opening.
3) Thought to myself, “How does this work? This stuff is going to come out of here fast.”
4) Smelled the energy wash. Mmmm. Minty.
5) Further pondered the large opening.
6) Examined the large blue bottle top in my other hand and finally noticed the flip-top cap on top.
7) Screwed large blue bottle top back onto bottle and flipped flip-top open.
8) Looked at much, much smaller squeeze-bottle delivery hole and decided that was the way to go.
9) Squeezed large handful of bright-blue minty energy wash into my right hand.
10) Flipped flip-top closed and set bottle of energy wash back in shower caddy.
11) Washed top of left forearm.
12) Ran out of minty energy wash.
13) Did some quick math in my head.
14) Decided that if I needed to keep opening the bottle and getting more minty energy wash every three seconds, I would be 2-1/2 hours late to work.
15) Left minty energy body wash in shower caddy.
16) Picked up bar of soap.
17) Washed myself.
18) Put soap back in soap tray.
19) Turned off water.
20) Toweled off.
21) Threw bottle of super-minty energy-style hair and body wash into trash can.

I informed my wife that the experiment had failed, and as a side note, that it did nothing to energize me at all, mint extracts or not.

She informed me that I was a Neanderthal and just simply did not know how to use body wash properly.

I’m a pretty smart guy. What am I missing, here? How is body wash supposed to be even remotely as convenient or useful as bar soap? I asked my wife that question, which she refused to answer. She just mumbled something about how cheap it was. I guess in the couponer’s mind, price goes a long way toward necessity and usefulness.

As far as the “recharge and energize” claim, I still haven’t figured that one out. Maybe it’s caffeinated and I was really supposed to drink it.

See you soon,
-Smidge


Copyright © 2011 Marc Schmatjen


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