So, in preparation for my basement renters moving in, I’ve had to go through and actually clean out the basement. That was as fun as slitting my wrists and doing push-ups in salt water… another blog post for another day. This post is about a “social experiment” I did thanks to the opportunities I had in all of this home-improvement mayhem.
While cleaning house, there were a couple things I had to get rid of. I had three options to get rid of them.
Option A: take it to the dump. This option costs me time and money. And I’d have to actually inhale the nastiness there.
Option B: take it and give it to charity. This option also costs me time and money (gas is money, right?)
Option C, list it for free on the internet and let somebody else spend their time and money to come pick it up.
So, I went with option A. Simply because I like to inhale any nastiness I possibly can. Haha. No. Not even. If you know me at all you know I don’t do well in places where a Costco size bottle of hand sanitizer won’t suffice. I went with option C and I listed it for free. Kind of.
The first thing I had to get rid of was my bed frame. Here is what my ad said:
Free oak bed frame. First to take it wins!
I have a nice oak headboard and foot board for the taking. Just take them. It’s for a king size bed. It’s on my driveway. All I ask is that you leave three giant bags of M&Ms on my front porch.
These are actually pretty nice, I just don’t want to bother with selling them. They’re sitting on my driveway. Please no calls, just go get them. No need to ring the doorbell, just take them. As soon as they’re gone, I’ll cancel this ad.
Good luck, and don’t forget the M&Ms.
They were gone within twenty minutes. Which has been my experience in giving away free stuff, but what made me super mad was that they took off with them and didn’t even leave my freakin’ M&Ms on the porch! I checked that night and still no M&Ms (I was hoping that they were going to come back and leave ‘em later). So the next day I decided to do it again and see if the whole world was full of crooks or if it was a one time thing.
This time it was Noah’s old crib that I needed to get rid of in a hurry, so I listed another ad, this time spelled out in more detail:
Will trade $600 crib for 12 lbs. of M&Ms
Okay, here’s the deal. I have a nice $600 crib (like, really, really nice) that I’m willing to give you on three conditions. And I’m very serious about these conditions.
1) You leave at least 12 lbs. of M&Ms on my doorstep when you take the crib. Preferably peanut butter or pretzel.
2) You are actually going to have a baby or have a baby right now. I want somebody to take this who needs it, not somebody who just wants to sell it. If I wanted it sold, I could do that.
3) You come get it off my driveway. No emails, no calls, I am headed out, and I’m trusting you to keep rule #1 and rule #2. It’s there right now. So, come get it.
This one took a little longer, about 40 minutes, and this time I was waiting, watching from the side window where I knew they couldn’t see me spying. I watched as a young couple and some friends came and started looking at the crib set. They liked what they saw, so they started loading it up in the back of their truck. Come on, where’s my M&Ms, I kept thinking as I watched them load the last of it. They all got up into their truck and started to pull out of the driveway without leaving me with my sweet chocolate. Those frickin’ crooks. What is wrong with the world? But then… they pulled up in front of the house and started toward the door (giggling) with a big white Styrofoam ice chest. They left it on the doorstep and ran back to their truck, laughing hysterically as they did (is it really that funny to pay somebody with chocolate).
After they pulled away I opened the door and not only was there the ice chest, there was another sack with two big bags of M&Ms in it. The schmuck from the night before had a change of heart, I guess, and came and delivered the goods, or at least 2/3 of it. Maybe he got hungry on the way over. I don’t think I’ve been that happy in months! I brought in the cooler and let Noah lift the lid off. “Let’s see what somebody left us!” I said. He opened it up and saw about 20 lbs of M&Ms. “M&Ms dad! Lots and lots and lots of them!” We both skipped around the house and danced together for awhile. Something about it all just made us so freaking happy. M&Ms always make us happy, but this time it was more than the M&Ms. It was that people had integrity. Sweet, hard candy shell integrity.
Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
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MelissaLynnBenham
That's totally awesome! I love the idea and it is so nice to see that some people do have integrity! Will you share some of your M and M's? :)
So I know you wrote this a while ago and I'm a little slow but I think this is seriously awesome! How many people would totally be okay with giving away a $600 crib for 12 lbs of M&M's???? Way cool! I should try that sometime . . . . . . .
Oh, I saw this super short clip of an M&M dispenser and immediately thought of you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTKeWSWpUR4&fe.... Enjoy!
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haha.. you crack me up! OK, I started reading your blog this last week.. and I went back to the beginning to read your whole transitional history.
I was gonna wait until I was all caught up to comment, but this post I cannot ignore! This is just the funniest thing. I have been wanting to clean out my shed, but dreading the 1) trip to the dump, 2) charity run and 3) garage sale option ...all so much work. I now have a much better option, thank you! My kids will thank you soon too.. I don't think we love M&M's as much as you and Noah, but yeah.. what an option, lol.
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I know this is super late but I found your blog recently and enjoy it so much I wanted to read what you've already written - slowly but surely, I made it to this post.
and I am in LOVE with this idea! And I don't know why everyone else thinks this is "so much" chocolate - that might last me a couple days, at most. Especially those Peanut Butter m&ms - make me melt! I'm going to do this next time I want to give something away for free. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous!
I am so trying that, only with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I need fuel for NaNoWriMo. I know for a fact I have some old stuff that needs selling, and mom read this and loved it, SO YOU MIGHT BE ONTO SOMETHING.
After reading this it makes me totally wanna find random stuff to give away just to score my favorite candy to! who'da thunk? LOVE this blog!
WHAT! THEY HAVE *PRETZEL* M&M'S????!?!#!YUY!!!?!?#?#?!##??!111
Man, am I deprived!
How clever of you to ask for M&M's though. Priceless idea! I'm glad that someone left what you asked for! :)
too cute... perhaps this works with the barter system. I'll trade you my crib for 6 jars of strawberry jam and 2 jars of salsa....
OK I think I need to try that with chocolate malt balls or Ding Dongs! AWESOME!!!
One of these days, you're going to meet those people who brought the cooler full of M&Ms because you KNOW they are going to tell that story for YEARS to come :D
That's awesome! Gotta love it
:) Such a great pic of Noah! So cute to imagine a grown man and his cute kid so happy dancing around the living room eating M&M's.....I can see the commercial now!
Okay, now I am off to slumber land.
What a great idea! I'm glad that the first group of people paid up, too! I came over from Laura's blog.
Well, welcome! And thanks for visiting Pat! Hope to see you roaming around these parts more often!
Well... not quite. It's in the garage waiting to be sanded down and touched up. If we have any problems I'll let you know. By the way, I'm serious about what I said. Here's my blog: carisascakes.blogspot.com
Very cool cakes, you're very talented.
I am very pleased to say that I am the new owner of the crib! Thank you for the chance to let us show our "hard candy shell integrity". PS. If you ever need to get rid of goods for "yummy goods" let us know. ;)
Haha, what I want to know is, did you figure out how to put that crib back together!?
That is awesomeness. I would have been giggling too because yes, it would be funny trying to find something to hold 20 lbs of M&Ms, deciding on the ice chest, then leaving it like Santa or something. Even though Santa wouldn't take the crib. Or would he?
Santa has only one goal. Unload the sleigh. I don't think he wants my crap, and I think he's too old to be thinking about putting in a nursery.
I found you through Laura's site, and damned if I'm not crying from laughing so hard at the China post!! I did the same thing you did, only asking for books, and didn't get as lucky! Maybe next time I'll ask for chocolate ;)
Haha, what were you trying to trade and for what books?
A couple of desks, a chair, and a dresser. This is what I wrote at Laura's site:
--"So, yeah, I did the whole furniture giveaway thing once. I left a poster saying "Free furniture for Books!", thinking I would get a couple of bodice rippers, right? Nope...got three books for a couple of desks, a chair, and a dresser. The books? One was "What to Expect, When You're Expecting" ( which I threw in the 'science fiction' bin), a guide on choosing a cat (14 pages long, which should tell you something), and the coup de grace? "The Do's and Don't's of Buying Real Estate" which was a FUCKING PAMPHLET, Y'ALL!!!"--
On the whole, you got a better deal with the M&M's :D
Hahaha, too funny! If only somebody loved me enough to give me that pamphlet before I bought my house!
Oh yeah, I wrote about your post and linked it. Hope you don't mind!
Oh, I feel like such a good Blogger friend since I saw that before I saw this and commented on it. I really do love your blog, and thanks so much for the awesome post!
Laura sent me. This is the sweetest story! (Pun intended.) I love the "sweet, hard candy shell integrity" part. I have a bunch of stuff to give away, so I may just have to try this myself!
Please, please, please do. And please report the outcome!
I like the idea that maybe the first person just didn't have payment on them at the time yet still came back. That's really cool. If I tried it here I'd probably find out M&M's are taxable!
Trust me, giving up 15% of your M&Ms is so worth the work to keep the remaining 85%!
Payment in Nutella would work for me!
Not only am I relieved by the honesty of the sweet M & M loving public who would share their chocolate goodness in exchange for furniture but am wondering if you are going to have a party or keep all that chocolate to yourself.
Haha, oh yeah, there will be a party going on. There is always a party going on when there are M&Ms in the house! And I'm not talking about the honky tonk rapper either.
I love it! that was a fantastic idea! I would have to go for paydays! HYSTERICAL!
Mmmmm... I love Paydays! I went through a two year phase where I totally rationalized Paydays because the nuts were on the outside. More protein and all.
That's freaking awesome! I love that they were giggling. I would have been laughing too.
Haha, I was laughing my butt off inside the house. Something about the whole thing was hilarious.
HOW COOL IS THAT?!? I love that experiment! And I love that those people have sweet, hard candy shell integrity. Awesome!
Thanks for the post. Love your blog, by the way!
the is the AWESOMEST thing I've EVER heard of!
Haha, it was pretty fun. So fun that we've started trying to think of other things we could do like this.
Danno, I am SOOOO super happy that the bed crooks finally brought M&M's, and the crib people are straight up awesome. Not to mention how awesome YOU are for giving things away for freaking candy.
Yeah, those crib people *were* straight up awesome. They even packed ice around the M&Ms so that they wouldn't melt on me!
I'll bet the crooks were never REALLY crooks to begin with... or at least, not intending to be. Given that your ad said that the item would be left outside, first come, first serve, they wanted to ensure that they would be the first to get it, but had no form of payment. After all, who has 12 lbs of M&Ms sitting in their cabinet (besides yourself, of course). :)
KristinLynn
I am going to have to agree with this post, only because I believe that MOST people have good decent hearts. :) I know it was sad to have to wait a day for payment, but I am hoping they just got the bed as quickly as they could and brought payment later. If not, at least they had a conscience. :) I have GOT to find me some stuff to barter M&M's with!! That is just HAPPY AWESOMENESS!!
OMG I love this story and I love reading your blog! :D :D :D
Thanks Jennifer! I am so glad to have you following! :-)
This idea is so full of WIN.
Thanks Laura! And may I say I love your blog! Everybody should go check it out!
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...I'm pretty sure the people who took the headboard and footboard didn't have two big bags of M&Ms just lying around... and didn't want to miss out on the bed by driving to the shop to get them first... that, at least, is how I see it. I think they fully intended to leave the M&Ms, they just wanted to make sure they got to the bed before anyone else, which meant they would have to get the M&Ms after picking it up and then drop them off later.
Maybe I like to think the best of people, but it makes more sense to me than for them to just have a change of heart.
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