Call It Karma

In a feat of Craigslist wizardry, and perhaps a healthy pinch of old-fashioned good luck, I was able to pull of the Craigslist barter caper of the century this afternoon. I had spoken to a friendly gentleman earlier this week via email and cellular telephone regarding some software he was interested in purchasing for graphic design. Being that the software, a Quarkbar if you will, is priced anywhere from $800 to $1500 for the newest, most wonderful version, I decided to offer my slightly older version on CL for a price which I considered to be the steal of the century – $100.

My hopes of attaining a few bills prior to my false alarm beer run last night were shattered when the guy never called or emailed, as he promised he would do when he was on the way to the residence. After returning from the gym this morning (Yes, it was rough, I have not been there in almost 8 months now. To sum it up, I FELT the burn.) I decided to repost everything for all the weekend warriors looking for junk. Just as I was going to delete and repost the Quarkbar I received an email. The email was from the kindly man who had vanished last evening, he actually offered an apology for his disappearance, and wanted to know if I would be willing to trade instead of doing cash as we had previously agreed upon.

I am an adventurous type, especially when it comes to bartering goods, so I decided to take him up on his offer, despite his previous tendency for flakiness. Well what do you know, this guy had a poor, lonely, iPhone sitting around that he never used anymore. The sad little Apple phone was already unlocked, and ready to be used on any GSM network. At first I thought my eyes had deceived me, as they often do when I spend 12 + hours staring at my laptop screen. But sure enough, there it was in black and white, this guy seriously wanted to give me an iPhone for some mac design software I had long since un-installed from my already sold G5.

Without sounding too overly enthusiastic (I did not want him thinking that I did not think the measly Quarkbar CD was not worth his phone) I replied to his post, telling him I would be around all day if he wanted to stop by, and that the trade would be fine as long as the phone worked. Not surprisingly, he was not too excited about the prospect of driving about 30 miles here and back to get a Quarkbar CD and bless me with his iPhone. I quickly folded and told him I could be at his house any time, which as it turned out, happened to be right at that exact moment. Time from email receipt to car: 10 minutes.

I really tried to keep the whole charade a secret from Butterfinger, as I love surprises and really enjoy the feeling of being able to surprise other people, but this one was too much. I spilled the beans:) He has been wanting an iPhone for quite some time now to be able to develop apps for the startup, and I was just so happy that I stumbled upon this deal that I HAD to tell him. What was his reaction? Shock, bewilderment, a belief that this is a sign to get back to the startup, although he remained somewhat reserved until the slick little device was in his hands.

He has had the iPhone, which looks absolutely brand new, works great and has only been used about 54 hours by its previous owner, for about 3 hours now and has not yet put it down. Every few minutes the music (both in the car and now at home) is broken by some exclamation of a fantastical feature that Apple bestowed upon this sleek little number. So far there has been the discovery of the device’s wifi capability (which means he can be friends with Franklin, the wireless EVDO), multi-touch screen sensor, shadow on the pin that points to a Google map location, display of album art covers by iTunes, amount of contrast the screen displays, ease of typing, the list goes on and on, but I could not be happier.

I still need to name him… Suggestions??