Re-evaluating my rates...

For business #3, that is (if you count my daily J.O.B. as a "business.")

I just got a call from someone who works with the daughter of the woman who I moved this weekend. She needs me to help move just a bed and some boxes.

"How much would you charge for something like that?" she asks.

My mind races, remembering the painful lesson of this weekend. (My body still feels like the steel cable of a suspension bridge after it's been stretched and pulled by an earthquake.)

"Where are you located and where do you need to move?" I ask.

"Reston to Arlington."

"Hmm...okay," I say, thinking that's not very far. I know where Reston is located, after all. And I live in Arlington. "How about $40?" I think I've pushed it. After all, there are guys on Craigslist advertising for a flat rate of $35 anywhere in the Beltway. Plut they have MUCH bigger trucks and extra burly dudes. I'm a writer with a little Ford Ranger. For a while I even had a rainbow hula air freshener hanging from my rearview mirror. (It was a marriage thing. Marriage to a girl. I don't like boys that way.)

In the ensuing silence, I realize I've gotten too greedy. In less than a week, I've gone from hesitant entrepreneur to Enron territory. I realize that left to my own devices, I could screw up microwave popcorn.

"That's all?" she says, exasperated.

"Well..." I stumble, "It's not that far out there...and I'm trying to undercut the competition..."

"I could pay you a lot more than that," she says. "Like $150."

"Really?" I say, now just as exasperated as her.

"Let me pay you more."

"No, I couldn't...well..." Shut up, you idiot! the emaciated, starving entrepreneur inside of me screams.

"Okay," I say, barely regaining my composure. "Since this is without a doubt the weirdest negotiation I've ever conducted, how about I charge $100 for the trip?"

"It's a deal," my new client says. "I can't believe how low you're trying to charge."

"Well," I said, "Like I said before, I'm trying to get around the competition and focus on a very small area. I have a feeling there are a lot of people in the area who don't have a car and just need to move a couple of things every now and then."

"Yeah," she said, "That's a HUGE help for people around here. I'm going to tell all of my friends about you."

For once, it's nice to have a girl tell all of her friends something positive about me.

Anyway, I need to think about this. I may be sitting on a potential easy gold mine. Well, easy except for the backbreaking labor.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention--as I answered the phone, I heard her talking to someone else. This is what she was in the middle of saying: "...but not if it's more than $200..."

Hmm. I think I've been working in the non-profit world for far too long. I've got the business sense of Homer Simpson. Remember the episode that starts off with him burning money to light his cigar? Moe asks, and Homer says, (and I paraphrase): "I invested in pumpkins, Moe. I have a feeling they're going to peak right around December this year..."