Photo credit: fistfuloftalent.com
Whenever I came across a phrase ‘no timewasters‘ in adverts where people were selling kittens or furniture or some other stuff I used to wonder what exactly that meant and how exactly these timewasters could waste your time. Until I found out.
My badly dented disgrace of a car almost completely disintegrated and I had to sell it. So I posted an ad on one of the local websites hoping to get rid of it fairly quickly. As my husband and I were watching a film on a Friday night somebody texted to enquire if I still had the car, which I did. Five or six texts were exchanged to inform the potential buyer of what exactly was wrong with it and tell him where I was based (which I did of course mention in the ad). We agreed that he’d come next morning between 9 and 10 to pick it up. So next morning we woke up earlier (not really a bad thing) and skipped on a morning run, but no one came.
The guy texted several hours later to say he got drunk the previous night (how sweet!) but could still come in the evening. We agreed on 8 pm this time and went to play tennis as we had plenty of time until then. During the hour that I was playing tennis (and obviously not checking my phone) he called 4 times and texted saying he was going to come now, not at 8 pm. By that time I was getting really angry. I texted him again to ask if he was going to come after all but got no reply. Now that’s one serious timewaster! Now I know exactly what that means!
PS. We did sell the car after all.
Confessions of the Linguistic Spy 