Now my situation is an unfortunate one. My apartment is small. So I can't really have a machine at my place. I mean I could... But it would be crowded and let's just say the wife's a tough sell. But luckily I have a friend close enough by who let's me keep my machine at his place.
But that means that really I can only have one machine because it REALLY doesn't make sense to tie up a bunch of money when I get to go play only a few times a week.
A machine I wanted came up on Seattle Craigslist ( I live in Vancouver). So I put my Getaway up on Craislist. It got a lot of attention. Fast forward to yesterday.
I wake up 9:00 am to go meet the guy buying the getaway at my buddys place.
At 10:15 guy shows up no haggling and we load up.
I almost instantly leave to goto my sister's to borrow her Nissan Pathfinder in another suberb and get there at 11:30.
They're lateish and I get on the road by 12:15. My destination somewhere between Tacoma and Seattle. Maybe even past tacoma IDK it was a long drive though.
Get to the border and it's only about a 30 min wait.
I get to the guys place at like 3:30 and pay and load up back on the road by 4:15.
Get back to the border by 7:00 and holy shit is the border line ever long. I'm sitting there for 45 minutes before I can even see the crossing. When I get down to choosing which line to go in it's 8:30 and I've basically already been on the road for 11 hours.
Naturally I choose the line where the custom's agent is asking 5 minutes of questions for every car when everyone else, as far as i can tell, get's a high five while driving by.
I get there and he starts asking me about the machine. "Do you flip them?" "No" "Do you operate them?" "No" " How much did it cost?"
Now here I'm like fuck let's just move along I don't want to be here for another hour. So I fib a little and say 1200 instead of 1900. TBH I didn't even know I had to pay taxes on a private sale so I really only fibbed just to speed things along. He doesn't say anything about the price but sends me inside to pay taxes.
I get inside and thank fuck there's not a big line up. I'm told to go right to the cashier to pay my taxes. I hand her the slip I got from the border guy and she says where's the receipt. I told here it was a private sale and there's no receipt. So she calls over her partner and he asks how I heard about it and I say craigslist. So they say which craigslist and start searching for the ad.
Meanwhile the guy is asking questions. "You said you had a machine previously to the other gaurd and sold it this morning, how much did you sell it for? "I tell him $2500" I'm literally so tired and burnt out I'm just robotically answering questions and he's like "You came down right away after?" "Yes". So he's like " Can I see your wallet?" It's right on the counter from showing ID so I say sure. He goes through it takes out my cash and there's only $600 left. So he starts talking oh you sold for 2500 only spent 1200 on this but you have $600 left. So where's the rest of the money?
Obviously I come clean and I'm super genuine how I honestly didn't know about taxes on private sales and that I fibbed because I was wanting to get the ball moving after being on the road for like 11 hours and waiting in line for well over an hour alone. He could tell I was being sincere so rather than hitting me with the $500 lying fine he just hits me with the lying to someone in uniform lecture. I end up paying ~$200 in taxes and they let me go.
At least I'm driving again! Finally get back to my buddy's place near 10. Carry a machine down like my 4th set of stairs for the day. Set it up and am waaaaaay too tired to even play a game and leave to go drop my sister's truck back off.
Eventually I finally get home just before midnight and I can barely keep my eyes open and fall asleep basically as soon as I get in the door.
Now after all that bitching and complaining here's the good. I got a literally mint WPT. HUO the guy had it in his poker themed games room and probably played it about once a month. It's basically new in box and has never been played. After taxes and all the work did I over pay? I dunno, maybe. I also dealth with two guy's on craigslist that were absolute saints which is super rare so for that I consider myself lucky!
Alot of people hate on WPT but I find the theme fun and kitchy especially since I play poker for a living and there's no arguing that the rules are pretty awesome.
I don't really have any pictures yet because I was too pooped once I got it set up but I'm gonna head out later today and take a bunch and change lights and clean it ( guy had never had the glass off since he owned it lol)
So anywho that's my story and I just slept for 10 hours straight and needed every hour! I like to count that trip as my pinsider initiation.
