Dressform Drama

Ever sell anything on eBay? It's perfectly respectable these days for just about everyone to sell there and make a decent profit. Until you have to ship it! If it is a semi large to large item the rules and the rates keep changing on how you can ship things and I sometimes wonder if it is worth it.

To start, with I FINALLY got a dress form close to my size at a reasonable price. Anyone who has ever lost a bid on eBay would know how glad I was that the person put the "buy it now" option for the item. I begged the person to ship the item quickly so that I could use it right away. That was not to happen. Whichever way the small town UPS authorized mail supplies company packed the item, it was not the right way. When it arrived the UPS driver was scared to ask what it was because there was a big pole sticking out of the box and that was not the worst of it. The pole ripped up the antique dress form , the stand broke at the wheel, and the pole cap was missing. The ha ha ha of it is that I can not use the dressform until they investigate what happened and who knows how long that will take. So no dressform for me for now.

The next thing is that I sold my Uniquely You dress form to partially pay for the Wolf. *sigh* I printed out the Paypal label used for eBay sellers through USPS and went to the post office. The main post office did not have a box big enough for the package, but they told me I could wrap her in a garbage bag with the clear packaging tape and send her to save on packaging costs. The price they quoted me was great because it was even less than what I already paid for the Paypal label and less than what I charged the buyer. So I took her home, packaged her up very professionally and took her to my local post office to be shipped. They said that although the weight was only 9lbs, it was an oddly shaped package and since May 14, 2007 there is a new rule that the post office has to charge customers more for oddly shaped packages since it might take up more space on the truck. The difference between what I originally paid for packaging and what they wanted to charge me is an additional $30! The postal worker said if I put the dressform in a box it might be less. We will see.

Just like Barbara Streisand told James Lipton that she worked hard to become rich and famous so she would not have to make her own bed, I am going to work extra hard to be wealthy so I do not have to ship packages! (Or wash dishes.)