In a shift in the norm, we have an addition to eBay eDiots that is odd in that this customer happens to be a good customer. In fact, he was willing to set up a trade for a while, but obnoxious persistence gives H. Bryant an un-coveted place on the list.

It all started when I happened upon a pile of over a dozen Sega Master System games at the local Goodwill for a dollar a piece. I decided to buy them up and sell the ones I didn’t think were worth my time. Those of you who never heard of the SMS can’t appreciate the plight of selling the damn things; they’re next to worthless, though I knew it going in.

But somehow, I managed to sell the SMS version of Double Dragon (surprising, because if this were the version of the game that was released in the arcades, the entire development team would be forced to cross the infamous broken bridge). I contacted the buyer, offering him my stock of SMS games for a low price. This was my first mistake.

This prompted the first irritating insistence. H. Bryant paid for expedited shipping, which was a little odd, since that would make shipping cost a dollar more than the actual item. Expedited usually translates into Priority, but a little secret here is First Class has about the same transit time and is cheaper. Given the weight of the item, it probably would have gone out Media Mail (Glacier Class) if he choose regular shipping speed, so sending it First would have been a huge improvement. It turned out H. Bryant lived in Cleveland, a scant two hours away. This translated into brisk shipping time, making Priority Mail a waste of money.

However, H. Bryant insisted on Delivery Confirmation for tracking purposes. Considering there was a whole 120 miles between us, in postal terms, this doesn’t leave a whole lot of distance to track a package. And yet H. Bryant demanded it. Normally, I wouldn’t bother with it, since the item was worth a whole five bucks, but I was planning on trading games with him, so I figured it was best to butter him up.

Over the next week or so, we each tried to hock games on each other. I would receive an e-mail from H. Bryant just about every hour it seemed, which was actually a good thing, since most of the people I deal with seem to forget how to use e-mail for weeks, if not years at a time. After a while, I was starting to get tired of the entire thing. My major qualm was his insistence on sending the games out Priority Mail with, you guessed it, Delivery Confirmation. I told him I’d rather not spend the extra cash to get the games he was offering, since I wouldn’t play them for a while anyway, and I rather we just sent the games out Media Mail (which probably would have taken an extra day or two), but he tried to smooth out the deal by insisting he would do send my stuff out Priority with Delivery Confirmation. I think even a brick wall would pick up on the gist after a while.

Eventually, we hammered out an agreement, and I was just about to send the stuff out when he informed me that he had to back out of the deal because he spend his money on another system. I told him that I’d be willing to hold my games for him, but it was useless; he stopped e-mailing me right after, without so much as a goodbye. I eventually moved on, but I kind of miss having the little bugger around…