Wii are feeling empty

I sold the Wii today. It was a tough decision for me… I imagine it’s a lot like deciding to give your child up for adoption or perhaps to listen to the voice in the sky and build a giant boat for some huge flood no one knows about. My mind went back and forth and eventually I decided its better to be prepared for the flood than to assemble a shanty raft at the last minute… in the rain.

Yes, we need an emergency fund since Sallie and I are both jobless currently. I couldn’t justify keeping two videogame consoles in our time of need.

I’ve been trying to sell it on Ebay for the past three weeks with a $275 reserve on it. I just wasn’t hitting the mark. I thought I was doing everything correctly. I figured paying the extra dollar to have my Wii featured on Ebay might capture a couple more eyes. Maybe if I had lower shipping than the rest of the sellers (I did $15 instead of $25) getting rid of their Wiis. I even made sure the auction ended on a weekend day during the night, assuming I would attract more gamers when they are active. Turns out I was wrong.

The first time the final bid was $235. The second time it was $232. This just wouldn’t do. I mean I was packaging about $100 worth of accessories with the Wii. If it was just the system I would say maybe.

The last time I put it up I took a gamble. It ended in the afternoon on a Wednesday and I also put free shipping. Turns out I wasn’t thinking. The hardcore gamers that chug down Mountain Dew and play Halo all weekend don’t want a Wii because as our good friend Neil would say, “I has nothing but a bunch of baby games out for it.” Hardcore gamers don’t want to waggle their Wii-motes around. They want to decapitate terrorists. So my audience I was trying to sell to was 8 year olds and parents.

Then something about the word “free” being next to a product makes people go insane. I had twice as many bids and finally ended the auction at $320. That means just by getting rid of the $15 shipping fee I made $100. I can understand though because I gone insane for the word free. Last week at the grocery story I bought two boxes of Frosted Flakes because it was buy one get one free. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Frosted Flakes, but I’ve been forcing myself to eat bowl after bowl to justify having two boxes in the house and I’m just about sick of it now. But because it was buy one get one free at the grocery store, all common logic went out the door and my brain said, “yes, you could eat 2 lbs of sugar flakes… no wait… you NEED 2 lbs of Frosted Flakes.”

So anyway, Wii is gone. Assuming Sal and I have jobs soon, maybe I’ll trade in our unused emergency money toward a PS3 and sell my Xbox. I think that’s the way things are going right now anyway.