Hindsight: What can go wrong?

I thought it was a smart idea at the time.

My mother gave me some nice drinking glasses, made by Noritake, to put in my garage sale. I’d bought them for my mother at some point, but she’d rarely used them.

They were an older pattern, and I bought them online at a place that specializes in discontinued patterns.

These were in perfect condition, and when I looked online, they were selling for $25.99 each. Instead of putting them in my garage sale for $5, I had a brilliant idea: I’d sell them to the online site that buys vintage dishes.

I emailed and got a price quote of $11 a glass — a whopping $66! I was pretty excited to add that amount to my garage-sale proceeds.

So, I printed out the instructions, which were pretty detailed, to mail the pieces.

It recommended double-boxing and packing with Bubble Wrap or foam, then taping the items together with packing tape, and adding more peanuts or other protective packing stuff.

My husband went in the attic and brought down a sack of Bubble Wrap, as well as boxes in a variety of sizes.

We found a box that the six glasses would fit in, and he helped me wrap them. We started bickering a little bit in the process.

First of all, I had a glass of tea sitting on a small table, and he reached over to get the six glasses, and the table teetered.

“Be careful,” I said.

He was annoyed because he thought I was telling him to be careful with the old glasses. I explained that I was talking about him not knocking over my tea.

He apologized, but noted that I sometimes “point out the painfully obvious.”

Well, I said in a huff, why didn’t he just leave and I’d do it myself?

No, he insisted he wanted to help.

Then I got annoyed because he wasn’t rolling the glasses starting DIAGONALLY with the Bubble Wrap like the instructions said. He also was using thin Bubble Wrap that somebody in my household already had popped. It’s not Bubble Wrap if there are no BUBBLES.

He wrapped, and I re-wrapped.

Finally, we got the glasses all wrapped and taped together and packed in that smaller box. We needed another box to put them in, but we didn’t have one the right size.

So, we did what any normal person would do — we went dumpster-diving.

First we looked behind an elementary school. It was a beautiful day, and lots of kids were playing nearby, and a few adults.

It looked to me like the trash was behind a locked gate, and I got cold feet. I made him drive on.

We went to a place at the University of Central Arkansas that has been a source for boxes in the past, and he rummaged around while I sat around like a lookout in a getaway car. He found only one huge box that a chair came in.

Three dumpsters later, I was ready to go buy a dang box. Not that I don’t enjoy the occasional dumpster-diving, but I was wasting a beautiful day. We went to my son’s work, and he gave us a box, plus we got to visit with him for a few minutes.

We packed the small box in the bigger box. I wrote Fragile and Crystal all over the outside, like I was supposed to, and we taped it like we were sending it to space.

The next day I hauled the box to the post office, and it started to rain when I got out of the car.

After the clerk weighed and measured the box, she said it would cost $41 to get it there on time, because of its odd size.

That means I would make $25, which was not exactly the bounty I was hoping for.

So, I told the clerk there was a smaller box inside, and she and I started ripping open the outer box, shredded paper flying.

The smaller box needed more tape, and I had to transfer and retape the envelope with the address from the big box.

I got out of line, and the nice employee gave me the packing-tape gun to use.

Because I have the fine motor skills of a three-toed sloth, I cut my finger on the little serrated edges of the tape gun.

The nice employee got a Band-Aid for my bleeding finger. The customer next to me said nothing and just grabbed the gun to use when I set it down.

I mailed the smaller box for $21, and that was expensive, but better.

When I left, I dropped my phone and almost got run over by someone backing out of a parking space. When I got to the office, I realized I was missing one of my favorite earrings.

I retraced my steps and went back to the post office, where no one had turned in my earring.

I hope those glasses make it in one piece and I get paid.

So much for my bright idea.

After adding up the time I spent, a tetanus shot, mental anguish and the lost earring, I’m in the hole.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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