Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Collectors

I've been selling some comic books lately. I have titles I bought because I thought they might be valuable in the future but didn't necessarily like the character. Some of the books are valuable. most are not. I collected comics because I like the characters or the stories or the universe they were in. It was bought to be read and enjoyed and I would talk about what I read with my other comic geek friends.

Now some of what I collected are valuable. But like anything of "value," to sell it you have to find someone else who also thinks its valuable. For example, the Hope diamond is purported to be worth $350,000,000. But you'd have to find someone willing to shell out that ridiculous amount for a hunk of carbon.

Back to comics. The comics I collected for decades are in bags in long comic boxes. They were all carefully read when I bought them. In fact I held them with a folded piece of typing paper so the oil from my hands didn't damage the cover. It wasn't a thing where I planned to sell them and put my kids thru college, but I didn't want to leave finger prints on the covers. Comics now are sold at comic shops with bags and boards to protect them. It keeps the spines of the comics from getting damaged and the pages from getting creased.

I was working a job and talking to a guy I know who goes to comic conventions. I said I had some books to sell. He asked for titles and I gave him a list I had made for a comic dealer I met at wonder con. (Dude, if you had ever called or emailed me back we could have made a deal.) The lists took a long time and encompass the 2100-2300 comics I have in 7 boxes.

The guy at work looked at the list and wanted to see about 20 books. Specific issues of certain titles. I went to the Overstreet's comic buyers guide and looked up these books. They were first appearances of a few character which have become popular. Lobo. Doomsday. Things like that. I looked on eBay to see what the going rates are for the issues he wanted.

When I'm at SDCC I look at the vendors with comic books. They have big walls of books in plastic bags or better yet graded by a company called CGC. And I look at the prices. I have a lot of books which are pretty valuable; if I were able to get the prices they have on their walls.

So I haggled with him about prices. He is a collector of toys and comics and lots of pop culture things apparently. He kept coming back to the condition. Granted he's trying to get the best deal he can, but I, as a seller, don't want to feel like I'm getting taken advantage of just because I need cash.

Eventually I sold him a number of books. It helped my bank account but not as well as I would've liked. He commented later to me saying he had looked at some of the books with a magnifying glass. And there were creases. I found that odd. A magnifying glass. It's a comic book. One that is anywhere from 10-20-30 years old. It's brightly printed newspaper which no one who originally printed them back in the 1930s thought they'd have any value.

I wanted to ask if he read it. If he enjoyed it. I didn't because he was looking for flaws on his newly acquired investment, not as a book to be read and enjoyed.

Friday, May 6, 2016

Stalled

Whenever I poop I prefer to be at home. It's not a phobia of public bathroom thing but more of a social awkwardness thing. The act of taking a shit next to a person in a multiple stall toilet next to someone who is doing the same thing is weird. You don't know how things are working in their GI tract, but you get an indication from the sounds coming from the stall next to you. Human bodies make embarrassing sounds...

Yes, I know. There's books like, Everyone Poops. Which is meant for children to get used to the idea that they are going to be doing it daily until death. Not reading, pooping. Though reading and pooping are a thing. I'm not the type which reads War and Peace while on the toilet. I'm generally business-like. I do my business and get on with my day. It's quick. I don't have to spend too much time.

That's not the way it is for everyone. I have been in a stall next to someone who sounded like he was forcing a grizzly bear out of his ass. I almost asked if he was okay. But then that starts any number of awkward conversations. How big is the bear? Is it a cub or a fully grown angry 15 foot tall kodiak bear?

I don't know how women's rooms are, since women go to the toilet in pairs. Is that just to get away from silly men and talk? Do they talk in the stalls? I've seen it in movies, but I don't know if it happens like that in real life. So many questions. And I don't really pine for an answer.

Men's rooms are generally quiet. Like a tomb quiet. You don't generally acknowledge another person is there. It's not the place for conversation. That can take place outside. Inside there's work to be done. And then you get out. What women don't know is that at a line of urinals, two men won't stand next to each other if they can help it. We always have an empty urinal between us. If at all possible. But that would be another blog. Or a Funny or Die video.

Once I was working a corporate thing. I was sitting in a stall doing my business when a guy entered the bathroom. I knew he was there because he was talking on his cell phone. In speaker mode. He entered the stall next to mine and continued to talk. Are you shitting me? He didn't tell the person he was in the restroom and I guess his call was soooo important he couldn't hang up. It would be easy. Say, "Can I call you back in 5 minutes?" Most people would respond affirmatively.

So I sat there being especially quiet. Uncomfortably listening to both sides of this business call. At some point I was fed up and decided to fuck with him. His call was invading the serenity of my pooping, so why not? I knocked on the wall of the stall to the guy on the phone next to me. "Excuse me." I said loudly. Loud enough for the other person on the call to hear. "Do you have any toilet paper in your stall? This one is about out. Can you please pass me about 3 feet under the wall?"

The phone call stopped. There was a long silence. The person on the other end of the call said rather icily, "I'll call you back. When you aren't busy."

I embarrassed the shit out of the guy, but it was all innocent enough, and his own fault for impolitely carrying on a conversation while pooping.

He rolled out 3 feet of TP and passed it under the wall. I said, "Thank you very much."

I quickly got out of the bathroom and never saw who it was.