I should be doing homework.

Photo by Diana ✨

I can only apologise to my Vinted customers. I'm not in a good headspace this weekend after a busy few days at work, and you're unknowingly bearing the brunt of my physical exhaustion and broken mental downpipe. But c'mon. Asking for £15 off an unused £60 perfume that's already £100 off the RRP and/or optimistically offering £8 off a £20 dress (unworn and with a £65 RRP) AND/OR chancing your luck at getting 75p off a £2.25 travel size shower gel (unopened, and yeah, £6.50 RRP) is just... you deserve the life lessons I drop into our DMs. 

(this post is not about Vinted) 

I originally downloaded and started a side hustle (read as: a modest wardrobe clear-out) on Vinted over 10 years ago. It was nicer, back then. Less users, more polite chats, and everything was less than a tenner. Let me just peer out over my porch wistfully, as I nurse a weak coffee in my rocking chair... These days, the app is choking on overpriced tat that's not going even for tit, and folks making a career out of clear-outs. Well, not quite clear-outs, per se. I definitely follow some people who either have keys to warehouses, generous product allowances or frequently rinse staff sample sales - unless they happen to have bought the same dress in 5 different sizes and 6 different colours due to a body-reshaping affliction or colour-blindness condition, maybe? And while I'm all for paying those budding entrepreneurs over the billionaires who don't feed their workers, I'm also resentful that prices have risen, shipping options are more complicated and less sustainable, and reasonable offers of £2-£3 off aren't entertained. 

Well, I say it was better back then. And it was, mostly. But 10 years ago, I sold someone a Cath Kidston tote bag on Vinted. It was the retro Kidston style of 2012-2013; adorable whimsical illustrations of flowers and teddy bears, red buses, simple off-white on duck egg or rich red polkadots and, in the case of this bag, toy soldiers standing in lines, rocking their big hats. The bag was slightly discoloured in one corner, due to... well, use. The plastic coating was secure everywhere else, but a leak had snuck in this little crack - perhaps a trickle of coffee? That was most likely; I'd been dating a barista when I bought it. I got a lift to the Post Office in Sutton to send it off (back in the happier pre-Evri days) as that's where I was based during the week at the time, having radiotherapy at the Royal Marsden. The customer paid approximately £5 for it, including postage. They then complained when it arrived, demanded a refund, and gave me a scathing review. My overall rating went down, and I feared it would never recover. I cried in the hospital waiting room, which wasn't unusual, so fortunately no nurses or radiographers asked what was wrong - they just assumed it was the whole 'cancer treatment' thing. But no, it was the unforgiving trickle of coffee. 

(maybe this post was a little bit about Vinted)

Thank you for reading.

G. x