Futon

My nephew Josh is staying with us for the summer.  He's seventeen, and he just graduated.  We are sort of like his "backpacking through Europe" experience, just not nearly as cool...or expensive.  He's staying in our spare bedroom, which happens to be right by the kitchen and dining room, and isn't really great for allowing a guest to be secluded from the noise and goings-on in the house.  


Partly for that reason we were/are thinking about trying to turn part of our basement into a room of sorts for him.  Our basement is by no means finished, and at this time has a bunch of storage containers, boxes, and odds and ends in it (the nice way of saying it's full of junk).  Also, the stairs are a bit rickety and narrow and the door is kinda short.  I said all this to say that getting the queen mattress from our guest bed down there is highly unlikely.  


Therefore, we decided to look into getting a futon.  I know the right thing is for me to want to be frugal, but deep down, I like to buy new things.  Aaron, on the other hand really is frugal, and he wanted to look on craigslist.  So, I did.  I found a futon that looked decent and affordable and contacted the seller via e-mail.  He wrote back and gave his phone number, then we called him, went to look at it, and so on.  


After looking at it, we thought we would probably buy it.  However, a few things came up and we changed our minds about it because we didn't feel good about spending the money on it right now.  Then yesterday or the day before I got an e-mail from the guy asking if we were still interested.  He said he had a couple other offers, but was holding it for us.  I wrote back and explained that we weren't able to afford it right now, but that we might be able to in the next few weeks.  I told him that if he had other offers and needed to get rid of it not to hold back on our account.  


Today I received this response from him, "Thanks for having me contact you regarding this.  I have just lost 2 opportunities to sell it.  I wont sell it to you so please don't contact me anymore."  


I think I going through some kind of weird emotional thing, because it almost made me cry.  I mean, it was definitely not nice, but not really worth crying over.  I was really shocked that he would be so rude to someone over a futon.  


Then, after I got over wanting to cry and being shocked, I felt angry.  I felt like writing back to him something like, "Dear Sir, thank you for informing me that your futon is now unavailable to us.  After your last e-mail, I would just like to say that I wouldn't buy your futon if it was the only futon on the planet, that I don't want to so much as look at your futon, and you can shove your stupid futon where the sun doesn't shine."  Among other things.  


Fortunately, I didn't do that.  In fact I haven't written back anything at all.  Partly because I am afraid I would write something like that, and then regret it later, and partly because he specifically asked me not to contact him.  


Later, when I told Aaron about it, he wasn't completely surprised, because it turns out that Aaron told the man (before the other stuff came up) that we were planning on buying it, which I didn't know.  


Knowing that now, I at least understand why he was upset.  However, I don't think he needed to resort to meanness.  Also, if you are mad at someone for not buying your futon, presumably it is because A. you need to get rid of it, or B. you need the money, or C. both.  I really think that telling someone that you flat out won't sell it to them is not the way to meet those goals.  Particularly because it's not as though we just decided to buy another futon instead of his, we just felt we couldn't afford it right now.  Excuse me for not wanting to go into debt over a futon!  


I feel very frustrated by this, obviously, and also a little amazed that within one month's time I have had two different men be mean to me, which is more than I've had probably the whole rest of my life.  It bothers me.