Selling shit on reverb dot com
A few days ago I sold a guitar pedal on reverb, shipped it off, waved goodbye and forgot all about it. A few days later the buyer told me he’d like a refund, saying the pedal didn’t work as expected. Getting the refund request email kicked off a lot of anxious thoughts and feelings that really interupted my chill evening routine. I really didn’t have the mental energy to argue with a stranger on the internet about whether or not the pedal works, so I told him “sorry” and issued the refund.
One of the anxious thoughts was that the buyer, reverb, this pedal were all sources of pure negative affect so they must go. Get rid of the buyer ASAP, stop selling on reverb forever and trash the pedal if/when it makes its way back to me. I was also thinking about getting rid of all of my pedals, maybe even all of my music gear. These things were all now potential sources of anxiety under the right circumstances.
The next day things seemed less dire, less existential. The buyer was out of the picture, I can choose whether or not to sell my shit on reverb dot com and the pedal itself is sitting at my local PO and presumably will be delivered tomorrow. And I didn’t feel like trashing my hobby because of one uncomfortable interaction. So all in all this felt like a learning experience and not an ongoing source of anxiety.
tags: month-of-blogs, anxiety