Sunday, January 29, 2012

WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, OPEN THE DOOR FOR eBAY

  ISLANDS 2012 Calendar
(This and subsequent images are Hawaiian Odysseus photos.)


Islands 2012 Calendar, Reverse Side

Ever since I've expanded my niche selection in my eBay business, shopping in downtown Walla Walla has become more appealing for me, previously a tried and true I'd rather be watching the NFL playoffs or Storage Wars kind of guy.

It's also another form of being out on a date with my lovely wife...even if I am looking around.

No, it's not what you might be thinking.

My focal point--call me addicted--is stuff I might just be able to sell on eBay.

It's one thing to sell used, sometimes vintage, items.  But every now and then, I see things I can pick up at retail and attempt to resell at a humble profit.

So my heart skipped a beat one evening when my wife and I were shopping for groceries--yep!  of all places, a grocery store!--and I saw these great-looking 2012 calendars.  My head started spinning as I quickly crunched numbers in my head.

Turning to the boss, I discussed my idea and let her know my intentions.

She gave me the proverbial look that wives universally give their enterprising husbands...you know, that look of oh, boy, so you got another harebrained scheme up your sleeve, huh?

I get a bit excited when I see that look.  It's a prerequisite, you see, for my future success.  It challenges me, it teases me, it gives me just that right amount of come hither promise that is reminiscent of the early days (alright, years) of courting her.

Invariably, she gives me the okay.  But it's mostly due to the fact that I've proven to her that my ideas usually work.  They might take a while to germinate and then flourish, but with time and patience, they usually pan out.

So when my cat rudely awakened me this morning...and allow me to digress a bit and share with you that unpleasant experience:

I'm dead to the world, sound asleep, dead to the world, and undoubtedly snoring my head off because I've chosen to take a night off from using my CPAP apparatus, when I hear Kona clawing profusely on the side of the mattress near my feet.  

Kona has got to be part bobcat.  He seldom mews like normal cats to indicate he's wanting something.  Instead, he claws at objects around the house.  It makes enough of a noise to wake one of us up.

Like me...like this morning...like at 4:45 AM!

I've sprinkled enough water at him to make him tear out of the area like a jet kicking into Mach 5, so I figured I'd fake him out with a sprinkling motion from my hands.  But he's too smart for my feint, and he keeps clawing.

Which means I gotta get up!

So I struggled sleepily out of bed, beckoned him to go downstairs with me--or maybe I've got that backwards.  In any event, I end up opening the back door for him so he can go out and do his thing.

Don't get me wrong.  I appreciate Kona knowing where his bathroom is.  I mean, I'll tolerate the clawing as a more desirable event than the alternative. (We went on a trip once, and the catsitter apparently forgot to let him out, and so my poor wife discovered quite the surprise in our bathtub.)

Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yeah...so when my cat rudely awakened me this morning...I couldn't get back to sleep and decided to check my eBay site.

I was pleasantly surprised that a buyer from down under (G'day, Mate!) had purchased and paid for the above-displayed calendar.  As you can see from the second image, the sixteen monthly scenes are picturesque and very appealing.  

Bingo!  I hastened to tell my wife.  While the sale afforded us a humble profit,  it proved the point once again that with a little effort, ingenuity, resourcefulness, time, and patience, eBay affords anyone an opportunity to sell almost anything to anyone else clear across the globe.

On a personal level, it proved that the opportunistic notion I'd experienced in the grocery store had been worth following up on.

Which reminds me...I owe you a treat, Kona!


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