buying from a 'boy-scout' adventure

I waited for days to hear back from Mr. No-communicato who I was TRYING to buy a Bears jersey from.  He had finally messaged to say he would meet me closer to 7:30 pm instead of 7:00.  Swell.  Now I had to pass the duty off to Ed because Mini and I would be en-route to Curly's Irish dancing party.  Mini wanted to pop in and say hi to her old dancing buddies.  

I gave Ed my $45 cash for the jersey and Mini and I got ready to drive to dancing.  We left later than anticipated (TOTAL SHOCK).  Mr. Irresponsible messaged me to say he was at the Starbucks while Mini and I were driving by the Starbucks.  Fine.  I decided to stop and handle the buy on my own.  I pulled up next to his car.  He was now expecting Ed in a Mazda, not me in my great-white.  So, it took him a few minutes to roll down his window.  This gave me time to desperately dig in my purse to see if I had another $45 bucks - since Ed had my original cash.  I scraped together the dough needed for the exchange.  Phew.

I don't even know who the lunk-head was that I had been messaging- the guy driving or the guy in the passenger seat.   They were both smoking like little brain-less chimneys.  Yep, you guessed it.  The jersey wreaked of cigarette smoke.  It was beyond nasty - like a guarantee cancer diagnosis for whoever was crazy enough to wear it.    

This is a photo of how one of Santa's
 elves was clever enough to hide the
stinky jersey in the laundry room sink. 
Said elf carefully laid a giant empty toilet
 paper package over the sink where the jersey
 was soaking.  The sink was filled with
burning hot water, vinegar, and baking soda.
And the elf crossed her fingers.

'Um, this smells really bad of smoke,' I pointed out the obvious to one of the chimneys.  'Oh, sorry.  We never smoke in the house, so that was just from the car,' he assured me.  What a relief - NOT.  Clearly they were a couple of boy-scouts.  I am convinced that this jersey was stolen - thus the low price and the shady characters.  I hesitated.  'Will this smell come out if I wash it?'  Why was I asking someone whose olfactory senses had stopped functioning FOREVER ago?

Mini hissed at me from the passenger seat, 'Just buy it and let's go.  These guys are scary!'  I reluctantly parted with my $45 - was tempted to ask for a $5 discount for the smell and the horrid communication. 

See the jersey is peeking
out in this photo.  I hoped this
 wouldn't be the day my college kid decided to take
 an interest in doing laundry.  It was a safe bet!

I didn't even have the window closed when Ed walked up to the car.  My backup.  He missed the text from Mini saying, we got this.  I handed him the bag with the smoking shirt and asked him to drive home with it.  I literally didn't even want to drive around with that stench in the great white.  

I had to remove the tags and wash it and soak it repeatedly.  At last I decided it was as good as it was going to get.  Christmas was fast approaching and I had a few other items on my list to handle.  I hung #10 in my closet to dry.  

Mr. Smokey-bandit rated me on Letgo.  There are several factors that you can be rated on - quick response, politeness, fair prices, etc.  He called me 'polite'.  That was it.  I did not rate him, because I am afraid he will find where I live and burn my house down.  Ho, ho, ho.  Merry Christmas!