玩具的保存期限 Expiration date of toys
當初在買房的時候肉拉連個影都沒有，所以就按著有限的資金買了間兩房的小公寓。沒想到買房後的一年肉拉就出現了，在還沒想好要把猴生（台）送到哪個國家當個非法童工的當下，也只能先把猴生一拖拉庫的玩具給整理掉，幫肉拉的小床、玩具等清出一些空間來。
When we were looking to buy a property, there was no sign of Nola. As such, we bought a 2-bedder apartment with the available funds at the time. Who’d have thought that Nola came out of nowhere (ok maybe somewhere but unexpectedly) a year after we bought the property! While we haven’t quite figured out which country we should send off our son as an illegal child labour, what we had to do to clear up some spaces for Nola’s cot and toys was to declutter (rid of) the son’s toys.
猴生有很多我沒辦法理解用途的玩具，比如說風火輪(Hotwheels)，爆旋陀螺(Beyblade)，終極街鬥(Akedo)，爆丸(Bakugan)，都是一些噪音大且貴鬆鬆的玩具。
The son has a lot of toys with unclear purpose to me, such as Hotwheels, Beyblades, Akedo, Bakugan etc — all super noisy to play and pricey to acquire.
把一箱箱的玩具清出來後，讓猴生決定哪些玩具他不留，然後我就拿這些玩具當了生意人。先是用了 Gumtree(.com.au)，但是詢問率低，而且挑三揀四的多，比如說明明寫著是買家前來收貨，有的就跟你凹讓你送到哪。後來還是用了 FB Marketplace。其實我對此抱有的信心很低，因為賣小孩子的玩具真的太多了。
After sorting out boxes upon boxes of toys, I let the son decided which toys he didn’t want to keep, and I took those as my inventory to become a true businessman. I first used Gumtree(.com.au) for selling them, but the website has a low enquiring rate, and the interested parties were annoyingly picky. For example, it was clearly stated that the buyer to collect at the seller’s place, some buyers would try to get you to deliver to them. At the end I used FB Marketplace. To be honest I did not have much confidence in selling toys via it, as there were heaps of toys being listed there.
沒想到在 FB Marketplace 標列的玩具有很好的詢問率，再者因為這些玩具都是賤價賣出，沒有什麼詐騙手段。一個禮拜不到的時間我就把手上的玩具都銷空了。
To my surprise, I had a healthy inquiring rates for toys listed on FB Marketplace, and given they were listed dirt cheap, I didn’t have any fraudulent inquiries. Within one week I managed to sell out all my inventory.
其實在決定賤賣這些玩具的時候還挺掙扎的，大部分的玩具賣價定在買價的十分之一或是因為整組折價而更便宜。為此我還唸了猴生一頓，說以後買玩具要確定會玩啊，不是買來跟朋友炫耀啊。
It was a struggle for me to persuade myself to sell those toys so cheap. Most toys were sold at roughly 1/10 of their purchase price or lower, if there were bundle sales. Given the significant depreciation of toys’ values, I had a go at the son, telling him that he should actually play with toys bought not just for showing them off to his friends.
但是後來再想想，其實我們每個人都有自己喜歡的、願意花別人看來是重金的價位買的東西，也可能在買來之後就束之高閣。所有的事物都有一個保存期限吧，一段關係也好，一個玩具也好。只要在擁有的當下好好的享受過，或許就夠了吧。
Come to think about it, we all have belongings that we acquired with great effort / price, but they might seem worthless to others, or that we might just put them up for decoration once acquiring them. Maybe all matters have expiration dates on them — let it be a relationship or a toy. As long as you’ve enjoyed it while having it, that should be enough.
無三小路用通識之爆旋陀螺製造商 Useless Common Sense of Beyblade Manufacturers
在賣玩具的時候也會被問到一些讓我很無措的問題，比如說，我要賣的爆旋陀螺是哪個製造商生產的。居然！我真的不知道！
I was asked some questions on the information which I had no idea of when selling toys, such as, what are the manufacturers of the beyblades that I was selling. Really! I had no idea!
經過谷枸大神的庇蔭，我得知爆旋陀螺主要有這幾個製造商 Takara Tomy (同時也是爆旋陀螺品牌的所有者) / Hasbro / Sonokong。買家是想低價買入 Takara Tomy 製造的爆旋陀螺，因為這個製造商做出的爆旋陀螺賣價最高。
After the blessing of Google almighty, I’d learnt that Beyblades have the following main manufacturers — Takara Tomy, Hasbro and Sonokong. The buyer wanted to pay very little to acquire Beyblades manufactured by Takara Tomy, as their Beyblades have the highest selling prices in the retail market.
不過猴生的爆旋陀螺都是 Hasbro 製造的。所以交易不了了之。玩具也是一門學問啊。
The son’s Beyblades were all manufactured by Hasbro, so the transaction was a no go. Toys could be so specific that they are a niche business!
