The Great Jettison: How Do Ya Spell That, Again?

What a beauty!  Relaxing on the deck, cold n' sweaty drink in hand, soaking up the sunshine.  Sound familiar? These activities take place in the American outdoor furniture classic:  The Adirondack Chair

Pictures can be deceiving, but I was honest with this sale, I promise...




...I know the ... after "I promise" made it sound ominous, but I'm serious!  I listed that chair on Craigslist for just a buck, with a lot of condition problems.  We received the chair as a generous hand-me-down from our family.  When it arrived, it had a footstool and a partner chair with footstool.

Maybe the Southeastern Iowa sun is a lot more intense than that in the Northwest.  We are ALMOST a full degree of latitude south of our families.  That's right, one ninetieth of the way from the equator to the north pole away.

...or maybe it was just old, because both chairs were deteriorating on the back deck quickly.  One of them finally ate in one day with someone seated.  One sick-sounding crunch of rotting wood and the occupant of the chair was now an occupant of the ground.  No injuries were reported, but the chair was spongy-wood toast.  I suppose the mushrooms (not just mold, but fully-bloomed mushrooms with caps!) growing out of the armrest should have tipped me off.

Anyway, that chair is not the subject of this post.  The chair in the photo was the sister of the fallen, and she held on another year.  The paint was chipped, the structure was wobbly, and it had to go.  Our first plan was to set it out on clean-up week to be collected by either the sanitation workers or (more likely) the trollers who patrol the streets on clean-up week.  I had already deconstructed and thrown out the footstools, but a spark hit me.

...Maybe I can actually sell this thing!  So I listed the chair with all the condition problems and plenty of "Sold as is" statements.  Surprisingly, a lot of people got back to me right away.  I answered the first response, and had it in her vehicle the next day.  Her plan was to use it in a project.  Presumably of the art or restoration variety.

Her response when seeing it was memorable.  She was almost skeptical that I only wanted a dollar for it.  Not being the kind of person to gouge when someone shows interest, I assured her that I was only selling it on principal, not so much for the story.

Here it is folded down

In hindsight, I should have asked her, hypothetically, how much she would have been willing to pay for it.  Things like this are interesting to me.  I almost enjoy the story of a sale more than the money or the lightening of the load.  Here, I made a buck, got rid of an encumbrance, and got a rather long blog post.  She got a chair for a project.  Victory for all!

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