Pink Elephants on Parade

This post may come across as being snarky or hateful, but I don't intend it to be that way.  It's just matter of fact.  It's not emotional; it's business.

Tipsy Pink Elephants may not sound like anything to obsess over, but when Bernie Dexter gets her hands on it, you know it's going to be a gem.  I remember when this dress came out, I think it was 2012, and I simply could not afford it back then.  Then I saw one on a resale page and the love was rekindled, there was just one small problem......

One of the pitfalls of thrift shopping is that as time goes on it get harder and harder to find the thing you're looking for in good condition.  People wear things and they get faded, stained, holes.  Or people store things but even when an item is correctly stored, sometimes they just break down over time.  I don't know how I landed on this dress as the object of my next thrift hunt, but given that it's been so long since it released, I accepted the fact going in to this that I might never find it.  Much to my surprise, and after much searching, I found two size smalls of this dress that claimed to be in near perfect condition for $120 and one XS that was well worn and faded under the arms for $85.  Now, the XS was my size, but $85 for a pit-faded dress is absurd, especially when there are two that are in near perfect condition for only an extra $35.

I spoke with the seller several times, offering $65-$70 (shipping included, which seemed pretty generous to me) for the dress in less than optimal (read *basically ruined*) condition.  But she refused to budge.  I might have paid $85 because I loved this dress so much, but with tax and shipping it would have been $100 and as much as I loved the dress that was just insanity.  To be fair, I might have asked the seller too many questions, and been just a little too desperate in asking if she would make some kind of deal with me, because she eventually became very rude, so I just walked away.

I'm glad that door closed because, when this window opened, I found not only this dress in my size and in brand new condition, but for only $45 from a lovely Mercari seller who made a bargain with me and shipped it the same day!  The dress did have this gray border attached to it, which I thought I liked, but upon further inspection, I decided that it needed to go and set about changing it as soon as I got home from taking these pics.

It's not uncommon to run into sellers with delusional expectations.  They think because they paid $300 for it new a few years ago they can knock off a few bucks and resell it.  Unfortunately clothes rarely retain their value and in fact depreciate exponentially once they leave the store.  Sometimes you can reason with a seller like this; sometimes you can't.  More often than not what has to happen is that they won't take your word for it.  No, the dress has to sit there for a year or two before they come to the realization all on their own that if they want to sell it they've got to lower the price to a reasonable amount.  And the funniest thing of all to me is when I offer something reasonable or even generous, and they refuse only to sell it a year later for even less than I offered because that's the only way they can part with it.

I am so, so happy with this dress, I'm going to take amazing care of it and I am forever grateful to the seller who parted with it so inexpensively.  As far as the pit-faded dress?  Last time I checked it's still sitting there gathering dust, and probably will be for a year or two until the price goes down.