When was the last time you felt bad? Like, you wanted to confess or something if you thought it would make you feel better?

I put up a bunch of signs to sell my guitar amplifier for $200. This polite guy responded, was really nice and everything in a sort of innocent kind of way, I guess. He was speaking broken english w/a spanish accent and he had just moved here semi-recently. Just seemed like the sort of guy that probably went to church, took care of his mom and all that sort of stuff. He wanted to know if I was interested in joining his band and played a CD of his music and whatever.

Anyway, he told me he would come back the next week after he got his next paycheck and told me to sell it if someone wants it, but if not, he'll come back and buy it. So, a week later he calls me on Sunday morning and asks if I sold it, which I hadn't. He said he could stop by Monday and pick it up and asked for a good time to stop by. I said 4:00 and told him to just call first or whatever, but 4 was a good time. So, today (monday, I mean) he shows up at 5:30 at the exact moment I get a call from a client (or I should say potential client) and my girlfriend lets him in and I wave to him that I'll be a minute because I'm on the phone. The phone conversation goes on for a few minutes and my girlfriend starts getting annoyed and blabbing in the background while I'm trying to talk to this client. Finally, she comes in (it's been about 3 minutes) and says, "HE'S GOT A CAB WAITING OUTSIDE!" So, I ask the guy on the phone to hold on a minute and say, "Sorry, I didn't realize you had a taxi, here, you want it?" and start dragging the amplifier out.

The guy hands me $140 and it just pissed me off for reasons that aren't entirely his fault. I had a shitty day today. My landlord charged me an extra $100 rent for a bogus reason, then my 2 o'clock appointment called up and cancelled on me at exactly 2 o'clock and I had rejected a freelance opportunity earlier this morning because I had this prior engagement (and was expecting to get paid during this meeting). 2 other dipshits that asked me to do web site comps for them decided to stop answering my emails and then this guy shows up to buy my amplifier at 5:30 without calling first and hands me $60 less and is trying to haggle with me while I'm in the middle of an important phone call.

I told him I couldn't be bothered with this now, I have a client on the phone and basically started ignoring him and went back on the phone. The guy starts yapping at me, "But you said we make a deal, how much? $160? $180? That amp is not worth $200." And I got really annoyed and said, "Yeah it is worth $200-- WELL DON'T BUY IT THEN!" and waved him away like a peasant."

He left pretty confused and probably totally pissed off. Haggling is normal and I think the poor guy was broke, anyway. Now, I want to find him and pay him for the cab and give him the amplifier for $100 just because I was so rude.

Man, I hate that when I get all upset like that. And the thing is, the whole thing was pointless because I think I made such a bad impression to the guy on the phone, he'll probably just be yet another client that stops answering my emails. I covered the mouthpiece so he didn't hear me yelling and everything, but I kept rambling, "Hold on a sec? Somebody's here. Yeah, hello? I'm sorry, just a second? Now where were we?"