Ethics and the desk

Chris’s Desk. I gave it away. Actually i gave it away twice. I did not want to give it away but i did not have room for it and Chris did not want it and it is just a desk, after all. It did work perfectly for my ebay stuff, and for that reason and simply because it had been Chris’s, i wanted to keep it, but i could not figure a way to make it fit.

I listed it at well before Thanksgiving and gave it to someone who gave me the run-around for a month. We finally decided to relist it and i gave it away again, this time to a woman who said she wanted it for her little girl. This was 3 weeks plus a weekend before Christmas. She said she was going to pick it up 3 times and we stayed home each time even though twice it was an inconvenience. The first time she said she had a sick uncle who suddenly took a turn for the worse. Then there was a long delay because of the uncle’s funeral. Then twice more we waited and she never showed, did not call till later, and did not offer any reason, but assured us that she did want the desk. All this time the desk sat in the foyer blocking the closet door.

Just before Christmas we decided that we were tired of it sitting in the foyer and moved it back to the sewing room. The funny think is that during the time it sat in the foyer we shifted furniture. We bought a curio cabinet and that neccessitated moving the bookcase from the dining room to under the bar in the kitchen where it works very well. Then i decided to move the chifferobe in the dining room to my sewing room and the chifferobe that had been in Luke’s office and was now in my sewing room to the dining room.

When the chifferobe was moved to the sewing room many of the boxes went on top of it and there was a general shifting of things and suddenly a space opened up for the desk. It works in there now and has gone back to holding packing materials for ebay and some craft projects.

The problem is that i told the woman who wanted the desk the last time she called and tried to arrange to pick it up (on the Saturday before Christmas, and this time for sure) that we could not be home, nor did we have a place to set the desk outside while it was raining, and to contact me after Christmas.

Part of me says that they had ample opportunity to pick it up and didn’t and now i want to keep it and it IS my desk and i have thought of a good cover story about discovering over the Christmas holiday that my son unexpectedly wanted to keep his desk, to give an understandable reason why i have changed my mind about giving it. Besides, it is not a pretty desk or in any way feminine and i don’t know if a little girl would even like it.
The other part of me says that i gave this desk to a little girl (age unknown) who is expecting it and possibly excited about it and possibly in need of it, and it is not her fault that her parents got caught up in other things and did not pick it up when they should have and i should honor my word and give her the desk. I can figure out some other way to store the stuff that is currently in the drawers.

Sigh….. i know i overthink things and this has taken on more importance than it should, but every time i decied to keep the desk i get to feeling guilty.
Input?

2 comments

  1. Personally, I’d say she has one more chance after the holidays. That is, if I was going to stretch the deadline for her.

    Being that you have a new purpose for the desk, I don’t see any problem keeping it around.

    Christina tells me she would keep the desk.

  2. i guess i should officially update this.

    After we missed connections on another weekend, i wrote to the “taker” and told her that this was not working out and that the situation here had changed, etc and she wrote back and said that if i wanted to keep the desk she understood, so i am keeping it, at least for now.