I Just Let Myself Get Ripped Off

And I have no one to blame but me.

I woke up to news about Trump sending the National Guard to Los Angeles. And then later read they haven’t actually arrived yet. The whole thing is disturbing. I’m still working on writing about all of that, but in the meantime, may I distract you with a not-important-at-all story?

Let me start by asking: Are you good at haggling? Or even if you’re not good at it, do you enjoy it?

Personally, I HATE it. I’m kind of sick to my stomach just thinking about it as I type. And this has been true as long as I remember. My father loved to haggle; he loved buying and selling things through newspaper classifieds, and would haggle with every purchase and sale. (He died before eBay was a thing, but he would have been a top seller, I’m sure of it.) Even as a child, I remember having to walk out of the room when he was haggling because I couldn’t handle it.

Today I bought a fireplace. And I should have haggled, or even walked away, and I couldn’t do it. Haggling is just too stressful to me. Here’s the story: