Internet sales part 2

Previous reports about internet sales can be read here: At long last... the pleasure of shopping online and Selling thing online. The following is a translation.

Carolin 20 August 2019
Still available

SA 20 August 2019

Yes, still available :-)

Carolin 20 August 2019
Could you bring it?

SA 20 August 2019

Why can't you get it?

(If I had gotten a reasonable reply that it was a disabled person or an old person within my area, I may even have brought it, but I didn't get any reply whatsoever.)

Selling things online

And here's another (translated) sale/message history from that online selling platform. If you haven't read my first post about this, you can find it here: At long last... the pleasure of shopping online. "SA" is me, as you can probably tell.

Bubé 12 August 2019

Hello, that's looking good, can I have it tomorrow?

Best regards

SA 12 August 2019

Hello, yes that would be ok. Greetings

Bubé 12 August 2019

Can I get it tomorrow at around 7 pm?

SA 12 August 2019

Yes, that's ok.

Bubé 14 August 2019

Hello, sorry for the late reply, I wasn't able to get there yesterday.

Can I get it today, in 1 hr?

Best wishes

SA 14 August 2019

Hello, I didn't read that on that short notice, because I was busy outside of the internet. How about tomorrow? Greetings

Bubé 14 August 2019

Ok, how about tomorrow about 6 pm?

SA 14 August 2019

Yes okay

Bubé 15 August 2019

Hello, I'm just coming from work,can I come there now?

I would like to have the address.

Best regards

SA 15 August 2019

Hello, I was away myself up until now, because I didn't get a message before 6 pm. If it's not too late, we could meet today. (I gave my address and which name to ring the bell). When would you roughly be here?

Bubé 15 August 2019

It  is ok if I'm there at 08:50 pm?

(Not even waiting for a reply from me, he followed this with two other messages pretty much all back to back)

Bubé 15 August 2019

Then I'll start going now, I'll take the bike

Bubé 15 August 2019

I'm already on the way

SA 15 August 2019

You're on your way now already ;-)

(Shortly after the doorbell rang. When I opened the door, I could hear someone talk in a language I didn't understand or recognise. When I was able to see the person, I saw just one man, no companion, but in conversation with someone over his headset. I lifted the water-boiler in my hand and he searched for the money to give to me. We exchanged the water-boiler and money. When I went back to my laptop I read the following message.)

Bubé 15 August 2019

Right:)

I couldn't go there, so a friend of mine got it. Thank you.

Best regards

(I thought of the advice on the internet to never ever agree to "my friend will get it", because "my friend" could be someone, who hacked the messages and just for fun gets the thing as a supposed friend. So I couldn't resist writing one last message. I didn't get further messages.)

SA 15 August 201

What? You wrote to me you're on your way to get it and then it was a friend? Ok, as long as I've got my money... Have fun with the water-boiler, if you get it...

Two signs

Saw this today in the city, no idea who made the signs or who put them there:

"Geil, endlich 4 neue College-Blöcke" - Wicked, finally 4 new spiral-bound notepads

"Kein BAUM ist EGAL" - No TREE is INDIFFERENT

Comparing pays

Christmas is long over now, but the next Christmas will surely come. For this Christmas I checked my sister's amazon wish list and found a liqueur that I knew a certain store close to my place sells, too. Amazon had it for about 16 Euros (about 18 US Dollars). I went to the store close to me and found the last 2 bottles of the liqueur my sister wanted... for only 11 Euros (about 12.42 US Dollars). It was only a bit strange for me to pay for it, because I don't drink alcohol and now was standing with a liqueur bottle at the cashout.

The moral of the story: Even if online shopping is comfortable, it may pay to compare.

Taking and giving

Last month I wanted to go shopping and found an envelop wet from the rain on the pavement. I picked it up and found that it wasn't an open one, but a closed letter. I walked the path a bit further, because there would be a mailbox. Until now anyway. When I reached that corner, I looked around. Where was the mailbox? Had I not paid attention? I hadn't used it that often so far, but it should have been here somewhere. Then I saw it: the shadow and the holes from the attachment where the mailbox had been the past years. It had been taken away! I used the entrance to the tram station and went to the inner city to throw the envelop in the mailbox there.

By the way I had to go to the inner city, because the post office at the townhall closed last year, as well as the one at the central station. I found out the one at the townhall doesn't exist anymore when I went there to send a letter and found the building closed. I was surprised about the closing of the office at the central station at the same time, which I found out, when I wanted to get some money from the cash machine there and didn't find it. Only after walking the many hallways in the building and was standing in front of the door where the counters had been, did I see a note about the closing of the office. Really great. Hadn't it been possible to pin a note on all the entrances of the building, instead of letting me walk through all the long hallways to almost the counter room first? If I understood it correctly, the thought was to have all the possibilities of service in one single office. A research on the internet revealed that I wasn't the only person angry about the closing of the office at the central station. The parking options for car owners were seemingly better at the central station than at the inner city.

Around the same time I wanted to dispose of my recycling paper and walked to the container nearby. (The same container where I had found the religious figure.) But when I arrived after about 5 minutes of walking with the full cardboard box, I found no container. Just like with the mailbox, I looked around in surprise. The containers had been here for sure. Two paper banks and one for white, green and brown glass. But there was not one container! Angry I walked the way back and further to the other containers, which are inconveniently placed so you have to stand right on the street to dispose of your trash. At least those were still there, but the paper banks were pretty full and I had trouble getting my recycling paper I there to dispose it. On my way back I toyed with the idea of writing my landlady to give us back our paper bin. It doesn't cost extra money anyway. Our “housekeeper” had argued that it had been taken away for “fire safety reasons”, because nobody would take care to empty it, but it got stuffed overflowing. I discarded that thought to write to my landlady soon however. Surely she'd disagree or take her time to get our bin back, like she had been with other things in the past.

Today I walked a slightly different way back home from shopping than usual. I wondered what kind of containers there were just at the corner of our street. Were those new containers in fact? Indeed! We have new paper banks just very near by at the corner at our street! I walked home to get rid of the shopping and picked up my cardboard box which was overflowing with paper and dedicated the new paper banks.

I'm curious though that suddenly 2 paper bands are able to stand at the corner of the street. I had written to the city a while ago, because on the map online that street corner had been marked for paper banks, but didn't have any and I asked if it was possible to add some there. They negated that arguing that the vehicles to collect the paper were too big to drive there. Suddenly it seems possible after all. Suits me.

A letter from my aunt

Here's the (translated) beginning of a letter from my aunt from Hamburg, Germany, which I had in my mailbox today:

"Dear Sarah, 14 days ago I received your lovely Christmas greetings." (Liebe Sarah, vor 14 Tagen erhielt ich Deine lieben Weihnachtsgrüße.")

Granted, I had been late at the post office, only 2 days before Christmas(?) to send away my Christmas greetings. Still it's a very long time now for a simple post card in an envelope within Germany, isn't it?

Jeffrey

This story is fiction and at the same time true for so many people (especially teenagers). Not exactly the same way as in this story here, but in different ways. The end is tragic, but true as well for so many people in our culture. I wish I could say "have fun" or something. But this story just isn't fun at all. First I thought of summarizing the following story. But then I thought that I can't do it. I (or in fact Daniel Quinn, thanks, Daniel for sending it so fast!) cut it a bit, but this is what Ishmael tells (the story can be found on page 196-198 softcover edition of "My Ishmael"):

         "Among her friends in college," Ishmael began, "my benefactor Rachel Sokolow counted a young man named Jeffrey, whose father was an affluent surgeon. Jeffrey became an important person in many lives at this time and later, because he presented people with a problem. He couldn't figure out what to do with himself. He was physically attractive, intelligent, personable, and talented at almost anything he turned his hand to. He could play the guitar well, though he had no interest in a musical career. He could take a good photograph, produce a good sketch, play the lead in a school play, and write an entertaining story or a provocative essay, but he didn't want to be a photographer, an artist, an actor, or a writer. He did well in all his classes but didn't want to be a teacher or a scholar and wasn't interested in following his father's footsteps or in pursuing a career in law, the sciences, mathematics, business, or politics. . . . In spite of all this, he seemed 'well-adjusted,' as it's called. . . .

         "Jeffrey's friends never tired of finding new ideas to present to him in hopes of awakening his interest. Wouldn't he enjoy reviewing films for the local newspaper? Had he ever thought of taking up scrimshaw or jewelry making? Cabinetry was put forward as a soul-satisfying occupation. How about fossil hunting? . . . Jeffrey's father was completely sympathetic with his inability to discover an enthusiasm and ready to support him in whatever exploration he might find worthwhile. If a world tour had any appeal, a travel agent would be put to work on it. If he wanted to try the life of an outdoorsman, equipment would be supplied, gladly. If he wanted to take to the sea, a boat would be made ready. . . . He shrugged it all off, politely, embarrassed to be putting everyone to so much trouble.

         "I don't want to give you the impression he was lazy or spoiled. He was always at the top of his class, always held a part-time job, lived in ordinary student housing, didn't own a car. He just looked at the world that was on offer to him and couldn't see a single thing in it worth having. His friends kept saying to him, 'Look, you can't go on this way. You've got too much going for you. You've just got to get some ambition, got to find something you want to do with your life!'

         "Jeffrey graduated with honors but without a direction. After hanging around his father's house for the summer, he went to visit some college friends who had just gotten married. He took along his knapsack, his guitar, his journal. After a few weeks he set out to visit some other friends, hitch-hiking. He was in no hurry. He stopped along the way, helped some people who were building a barn, earned enough money to keep going, and eventually reached his next destination. Soon it was getting on for winter and he headed home. He and his father had long conversations, played gin rummy, played pool, played tennis, watched football, drank beer, read books, went to movies.

         "When spring came, Jeffrey bought a second-hand car and set out to visit friends in the other direction. People took him in wherever he went. They liked him and felt sorry for him, he was so rootless, so ineffectual, so unfocused. . . .

         "The years drifted by in this way. Jeffrey watched old friends get married, raise children, build careers, build businesses, win a little fame here, a little fortune there  . . . while he went on playing his guitar, writing a poem now and then, and filling one journal after another. Just last spring he celebrated his thirty-first birthday with friends at a vacation cottage on a lake in Wisconsin. In the morning he walked down to the water, wrote a few lines in his journal, then waded into the lake and drowned himself."

Sad story, one would probably say and indeed many people I've told the story to did say it. It seems that something is wrong with Jeffrey. That's what everybody told him. Something was wrong with him. But I'd like to ask the reader of this story a question: Is it true? Is there really something wrong with Jeffrey?
Jeffrey's story is fiction and reality at the same time. There are so many young people committing suicide. Not because they are crazy, but because of their helplessness. Mother Culture tells us that there's something wrong about these peoples.
Jeffrey's story is loosely based on the life of Paul Eppinger. His father Charles published Paul's journal under the title "Restless Mind, Quiet Thoughts". There are also letter exchanges from father and son and Charles also added some explaining lines here and there.

In memory of Daniel Quinn (October 11, 1935 – February 17, 2018)