Eric left out some important points in his story...
What happened is that we made a deal and agreed that he would send me half of the money up front and the other half when UPS verified that the canopy was enroute to Eric's friend in Canada. Upon receipt of the first half of the money, I placed the canopy in a nice rigger-roll, boxed and insured and shipped it off to Canada...
At the time, I was out of work -- having been in the middle of the dot-com crash. Actually, it wasn't until very recently that I became gainfully employed (many Unix guys are still looking). So when I was selling my gear it was in desperation hoping to keep from becoming homeless, and it didn't work.
When I received the last of Eric's money I had already had to vacate my apartment and so I did what any Deadhead would have done to fix the situation -- I went on tour (Stringcheese Incident, but close enough).
Here's where everything gets weird: Eric's friend in Canada wasn't there to receive the package and it was shipped back to the place I had shipped it from and of course, since I was on the road flipping grilled cheese for a living -- I didn't know till many months later that anything had gone wrong...
When Eric and I spoke about the matter, he insisted on getting the canopy instead of the money -- but at the time I was in San Francisco and the canopy was (still in the box I had shipped it to his friend in Canada) in storage at a friend's house on Arizona.
I promised to send him the canopy as soon as I could access it...
Well to make a long story a bit shorter -- I finally got a job and have been able to recover my remaining belongings. Upon inspecting the canopy I had sold Eric, I discovered that some foul and mysterious liquid had long ago leaked into the box rendering it useless...
I've already returned most of Eric's money via Western Union and he'll get the rest as soon as I get another paycheck.
If anyone doubts any part of my story, I am able to show physical proof of the shipping fiasco, Western Union receipts, etc. Hey, I may be bad at managing money -- but I'm no thief, or trickster.
Blue skies,
Michael
