You really need to be careful when you try to buy things on craigslist without a car. I bought a non-descript microwave the other day. The seller refused to give me an idea of the size of the appliance, ignoring several emails. I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal, I would go over and check it out, and if it was too big to deal with I’d say no thanks. But when you show up at someone’s house or apartment, there is some sort of unwritten rule that you really better buy the thing, unless there is something wrong with it. This was the 1.5 cubic foot variety of microwave, not the 0.7 cubic foot kind. It’s large. I picked it up, and it didn’t seem to heavy, and proceeded to carry it down the street to my place. I figured at slightly under a mile, it couldn’t be too bad.  The first minute or so was easy, but it got exponentially harder. I proceeded to make a bit of a fool of myself, awkwardly carrying this giant thing down a fairly well trafficked street, stopping to catch my breath every 100 feet or so. My arms were so numb afterwards it was a challenge to feed myself, or hold a phone to my ear. But, I have a microwave now, so all is good.

Just be careful what you get yourself into…

Advertisement