Ebay Etiquette

I sell things on eBay as a way to make a living and support my children.  No, I don't want to sell your things for you on eBay.  I also don't want to explain the entire selling process to you in detail so you can sell your stuff.  There are a lot of buyers who appear to have no manners, so I feel that all buyers should read this.

• Read the listing.  This should go without saying, but I get a lot of buyers who only half-read the title if I'm lucky.  Even more don't even bother scanning over the listing and are very bothered when they receive their item with unrealistic expectations and find that it's the exact item I described six times over in the listing.
• Email the buyer before leaving negative feedback.  A lot of us will bend over backwards for you, but once you've left a negative, we're done. 
• If you email the buyer and don't receive an immediate response, wait 48 hours.  This is standard eBay policy.  We sellers are actual humans with lives.  Many of us have children or other jobs.  Most of us don't sit in front of the computer all day, waiting for your emails.  
• Emailing us seven times in a row with progressively angrier messages won't get you anywhere, especially if we're not around to view these messages.  See above.
• Things often get lost or damaged in the mail.  If you check the tracking and it says that I took it to the post office, it's out of my hands and I can't possibly control what happens  Many sellers will ship your item again if it was lost without insurance  I did not hijack a mail truck so I could steal back your nine dollar can of H2Ocean spray.  I'm not sitting behind my computer, greedily rubbing my hands together, hoping to con you out of a few bucks.  Most eBay store owners are trying to run an honest business.  We wouldn't have an eBay store if we were ripping everyone off.
• If you're going to leave a negative feedback because were too lazy to read the item listing, please make sure to include as many expletives as the tiny space will allow.  This makes feedback removal much easier for the seller.
• Many sellers will accept lower offers on their product.  Please be reasonable when making an offer.  Don't offer $3.00 for an item that sells for $129.00, unless you like when buyers laugh at you.  Also, don't get butthurt when a seller rejects your offer or sends a higher counteroffer.  We're not selling products to you as a hobby.  We're trying to make a profit here and can't do that if we accept every offer that gets sent.
• Most of us accept returns.  Read the return information before clicking on the buy or bid buttons.  It will save us both a lot of headache.  Most sellers require buyers to return items IN THEIR ORIGINAL CONDITION in order to give a refund, so if you used your entire bottle of H2Ocean and then asked for a return, you're out of luck.
• By all means, please ask reasonable questions about the item.  Read the item's description first, and if you don't have all of the information you desire, ask questions.  Most sellers are happy to answer questions from buyers.
• Pay for your item!  You were obviously interested in purchasing this item, because you clicked "buy it now" and entered your password.  Pay for it so you can receive it. Sellers have to pay fees on each item sold, whether or not the buyer actually had to pay for it.  If you don't pay for it, don't be surprised when you get an unpaid item reminder.
• If you bought by accident or changed your mind, contact the seller and they'll start the cancellation process.  They'll get a fee credit and you won't get a strike.
• Check your address to make sure it's accurate before you buy the item.  Most sellers aren't psychic and therefore don't know that you have moved five states away from your previous address.

That's all I've got for now.  If you can think of something I missed, let me know in the comments section.  Now you can go and buy my stuff!

Homeschool Rant #2

Homeschool kids are weird.  It's true.  If you start typing "homeschool kids are," it pops up.  If Google says something, it has to be true.  Right?

Oh, I see.  So you've met someone who was homeschooled.  They were weird.  That means that all homeschoolers are weird, right?  Of course.

I've met a lot of public schooled children who were ignorant little selfish twits.  That must mean that all public schoolers are ignorant little selfish twits. 

Harsh generalizations are. . . well, harsh.  For lack of a better word, they're harsh.  

My kids are weird.  Not because they're homeschooled, but because they're mine.  I'm weird.  By your standards, at least.  

Cafe Press has some pretty funny stuff down there, you know.
 

Horrible Mother

Kaiya and Ronin both love Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Kaiya says it's a tie for her favorite with My Little Pony and Invader Zim, but Ninja Turtles is still a little bit better. Little Britain and Doctor Who are up there in the top five as well.  Ronin can't pick a favorite because he likes everything, from Super Mario Brothers Super Show to Thomas and Friends.  Just not Doctor Who.  He likes to pretend he's a Dalek, but he's afraid of everything else on the show.

Anyway, they love Ninja Turtles.  Anytime the show comes on, they absolutely MUST jump around, dance, and practice their ninja skills.  If I don't intervene quickly, it's a sure thing that someone will get hurt.  Minor injuries are very common.

I let them watch some Netflix so that I could put my bed back together (that's a whole 'nother blog post) and heard the new rap-tacular theme song, but didn't say "oh crap" until it was too late and Kaiya was screaming.  She said she had been jumping around and "just fell" off the ottoman onto her face.  Since she was crying, her whole face was swollen and I couldn't tell what was happening.  We put a bag of frozen corn on her nose, which Tanith thought was hilarious.  My darling husband said there was no way it could be broken.

This is how she looked the next morning, Easter Sunday:

So I took her to the emergency room at our little town's new hospital.  Lovely place it is.  When asked about what happened, my Kaiya told the nurse and later the doctor, "Got into a fight with the floor.  The floor won."  She got to ride in a wheelchair and pretend she was Andy from Little Britain. It's broken, but already mostly healed and shouldn't make too much of a difference in her face.

 And here's what she looks like today:

Homeschool rant #1

This will be the first of a long series of homeschool rants.

Why do people feel the need to weigh in on homeschool's effect on the social development of my children?  Maybe I think your child is an insufferable brat, but I keep my mouth shut.  I don't blame public school for their faults. 

Sure, my oldest child is shy.  Kaiya has always been shy, but she's started to overcome it since she left kindergarten.  She approaches other children and plays with them now.  She's not being forced to socialize with rabid little beasts who seem to have been raised by wolves and then left outside to catch the bus.

Ronin's only four, so not of schooling age yet, but people still blame homeschool for his tendencies.  He seems to be acting a lot like a four year old boy at the moment.  Ronin learns best when he's not sitting still.  Last year, I was attempting to teach Kaiya to tell time, I showed her a clock and asked for the time.  He breezed by on his way to the playroom and yelled over his shoulder that it was "tooelf o'cwock".  What the crap, man?  He was 3 and I hadn't even worked on numbers past 10 with him at that point.  He's the type of child who simply cannot sit still and learn.

I went to public school.  What's my excuse for being socially awkward?

No Karate

My oldest daughter, Kaiya, is five years old, in kindergarten, and a very smart and sensitive child.  She’s a little shy and not very assertive around her peers, so we thought it would be a good idea for her to take karate classes.  Any class that teaches a child respect, responsibility, focus, and how to kick ass is good, right?  She was excited about it.  We all were excited about it.
Until the first class.  We got there, paid our fees, and class began.  It took the child five minutes to remove her shoes.  A child who hates shoes wanted to leave hers on in karate class!  She seemed a little nervous for the first few minutes, then got a little shaky toward the middle.  Then when they were practicing their yells and stances, she burst into tears.  She couldn’t handle the yelling.  She understood that no one was yelling at her, but just couldn’t take the noise.  She can yell and scream and jump around at home, but when she’s told it’s okay to yell, she cries instead.
We stayed to watch the rest of the class, and then left.  That was her first, and probably her last, karate class.