Cum Not Between The Coughing Dragon And His Wrath

If you thought that the condition of the other books in the parcel were a bit ropey, bloggers, what do you make of this:   

Note the sellotaped cover and the unusual white residue all over the spine and back cover.  I’ve no idea what this white stuff is, but frankly the book puts me in mind of those scud books you used to pass around school (young people – a scud book is what we old people used before the advent of the internet) which for some reason or other had pages that mysteriously became stuck together.  Maybe the previous owner of this book was really excited to own it.  Whatever.  I can put up with worn boards, cocked spines and birthday inscriptions, bloggers, but I draw the line at spunk.  The following is a genuine record of the communication exchange between myself and the seller; you may find his attitude hard to swallow, but I say if he had been better at swallowing stuff that was hard to swallow, maybe the book wouldn’t be in the state it is in.  I kicked the thing off with this: (Note you can click on these messages to display the text more clearly)

His (eventual) reply was as follows:   

Yes, folks, you read this correctly.  I have unrealistically high expectations, or have switched the books in order to swindle him out of his better copy.  What a cheeky bastard.  I replied that his assertion that i had swapped the books was as laughable as it was offensive and he replied as follows:  

Bear in mind, folks, that I had just paid this tosser over £60 for three books, only one of which I was complaining about.  Here was my response:   

This was too much for him, and he went into customer service meltdown: 

 Got that?  I’m a “prat” with no sense of humour and am like the character of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, a show that the seller’s daughter watches.  Bloggers, this is not a show with which I am familiar, but I am assuming that this is an insult. (Maybe not and Sheldon is a tall, slim, handsome Adonis who gets all the birds due to his good looks and great personality – I must check the show out some time).  Before I got a chance to respond, something really strange happened.  Check out his next message: 

 An apology!  Before long this came:  Now some outright contrition!  He followed up with this:   

And then:

And that was the story of his Damascene conversion.  I thought him a complete twat throughout this saga, but really it’s hard to be bitter about someone who expresses such regret for his actions.   

Still I gave the fucker a negative feedback, though, I’m not that forgiving.