Stage 1: Post item. You are immediately flooded with interest and commend both your photography skills and excellent taste in selecting furniture with great resale value. This is looking almost too easy, and you tell yourself, “I could get rich this way! Maybe I’ll drop everything and start flipping furniture!”

Stage 2: Buyers seem antsy. If you leave the chat for even a minute, to attend to another inquiry or, you know, go to the bathroom, you return to a chat box filled with rows of question marks, like the ones your mom sends you when you haven’t answered her calls for awhile. You wonder, do I really want someone with this kind of texting etiquette coming to my house?

Stage 3: You zero in on someone who seems normal and was early in the pack, giving them the opportunity to pick up your dresser, which is seeming more and more precious and you now think that maybe you should have asked for more. You’re happy for this lucky winner, with whom you will bestow your beloved (but “Like New”) furniture for a scandalously low price. And this person, rather than showing you any gratitude at all, sends you a message they’ve obviously sent countless times before: “For my safety, I’m going to send you a six-digit verification code to prove you’re a real seller.”

Well, when you call safety into question, what else are you going to do besides say “Okay”? You receive the code from an automated Google service, and text back the correct numbers to show you’re not a robot. There. Validated. You wait for them to confirm the time of pickup and send them your Venmo for payment.

Stage 4: Thanks, they say. Now give me another number. What? You ask. Another number? You barely want this person having YOUR number, let alone bringing your partner or sister into this, but it’s very clear that this is what they’re asking: they want to send a code to another number - “a relative,” they say. “Just give me anyone else’s number.”

You’re struck dumb by this. You don’t want to very well tell them that you’re home alone and not only does the request feel odd, but so would the subsequent game of telephone. (“Sorry to interrupt your workday, can you text me the six-digit code you just received….Don’t worry, it’s from a total stranger.”)

They are completely scandalized by the fact that you will not provide a relative’s phone number. “What’s your problem?” they go so far as to say. Keep in mind, they are looking to purchase a dresser from you for less than fifty dollars, and they want to go through several stages of security as if you contacted them and are a fairly conspicuous predator.

Stage 5: Look, you say. (You’ve cheated on this person by pursuing the next several buyers, and they all want “someone else’s phone number,” in addition to yours, so you know this must be customary now in this absolute cesspool of a marketplace.) We’re texting each other directly right now. This is my cell phone. If you want to be sure I’m a real person, you can just call me. But I’m not giving out someone else’s number. It feels wrong.

You sit taller in your own righteousness.

Stage 5: The person leaves the chat. You put the dresser outside with a tag marked “FREE.”

Jessica Brenner lives with her husband and three children in Northern California. She is a writer and independent counselor who received her Master's in Counseling Psychology from San Francisco State University. Previously, she received a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University and a B.A. in Jewish History from Albert A. List College. She is the author of College Admission Essays for Dummies (2nd ed). Jessica has supported hundreds of students through learning adversities, the college application process, and finding their voices on paper - while finding time to share her own.