Goodwill Also Takes Bribes

We've been cleaning out our condo like mad, getting ready to put it on the market in a few weeks. We realize the market's bubble has burst and hasn't blown back up since, but we're hoping to get out before what's left of the bubble proceeds to fall off a cliff. If and when that happens, maybe we can get back in. That's our thinking at least, and years from now if we're wrong and Tai wonders what in the world happened, he can check back to this blog post.

Anyway, we "decluttered" our place, moving out great amounts of stuff this past weekend, making our rooms seem much bigger. A lot of it was packed in boxes, loaded into a 10-foot truck on Saturday, and taken to Public Storage. There were some things, though, that needed to be given away, and that stuff was taken to our local Goodwill drop-off.

We pulled up in our 10-foot rental truck to the Goodwill spot, comprised of two truck trailers located at the El Cerrito recycling center. The Goodwill man took our clothes and CD player, but wouldn't take our furniture. "Takes up too much space," the dreadlocked man said. That wasn't good for us because that left us with a bookshelf, Tai's diaper stand, and a desk sitting in a 10-foot truck that needed to be returned.

That is when inspiration hit and I reached my hand into my pocket. "What do you have your hand in your pocket for?" asked the man.

"I'm putting away my receipt," I said. "Why? It's not like I can give you something to take this stuff."

The man paused and rubbed his chin. "How much you got?"

I looked in my wallet. I saw a ten and a bunch of ones. No way would I give ten, but two seemed too cheap. "How about five?"

"Sure," said the man.

He'd take the bookshelf and the diaper stand. Oh no, I thought. I'd forgotten to tell him about the desk. What is he gonna want for that? Fortunately, he took it for another two.

A Goodwill drop-off was the last place I expected to negotiate. But the deal was done. Daniel and I gave a fist bump to "Roo," who we learned wields quite a bit of power for a guy who sits in a Goodwill truck all day. Seven dollars here, seven dollars there, and probably a few CD players on the side. Not a bad job.