I an taking a 12 week Self Relience Course sponsered by my church. The first week the assignment was to take up the Paperclip Chanllenge. It is a kind of trading game where you take a paperclip and trade it for something bigger and/or better and keep trading it up in hopes of gaining value.
This was kinda started by Kyle MacDonald, a fellow who wrote a book about his exprience in
One Red Paperclip:How to Trade a Red Paperclip For a House.
(this is a amazon affilite link, so if you buy I get a small comission at no extra cost to you.)
Check out
The Red Paperclip Guy 's 2015 TEDtalk on YouTube.
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| Kyle MacDonald The Red Paperclip Guy |
But my odyssey started with a blue paperclip
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| the paperclip |
That paperclip sat in my pocket for a whole day until my sister took me to a friend's house to make a trade. My friend Linda thought about it for a bit and pulled out brand new pencil. Very remenicent of the fish shaped pen (what pen? see youtube
the red paperclip guy).
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| the pencil |
The next morning I went to my neighbor and traded the pencil for a set of playing cards that had cajun recipes the cards' box had a magnet and the autograph of the creator on the back.
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| the playing cards |
My sister hadn't even seen the cards but from the discription I had given her over the phone she said, "I've gotta hav'em!" my first reaction was that this was cheating but after a little reflection I shugged and decided "why not". But I realized I had leverage and made her give me give me something good. I had rejected a hand crocheted dish cloth and t-shirt until she found a pair of ear rings she had constructed.
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| the ear rings |
It took my sister a while to locate the ear rings for the trade but in time for me to approach a friend who had dropped by with her husband to help my Dad out with some handyman chores. She seemed actually impressed with iridescent beads. After some thought she remembered she had a pair of what she called "Slippers" that she didn't need anymore and willing to part with them for a pretty pair of ear rings.
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| the slippers |
The next day I received the "Slippers" - my friend had mentioned that they were pink and jewel encrusted. For some reason I had envisioned bedroom slippers, but the "Slippers" turned out to be flip-flops that were indeed pink and jewel encrusted. I was very pleased with the swap.
When we went to the Self Relience class to report on our Paperclip Challenge. My sister was the winner because she had not only traded her paperclip up to something bigger or better. She got the playing cards with the cajun recipes - she convinced one of the participants in the class to trade a cookbook he was not pleased with for her 4 sponges.
My sister also ended up the pink "Slippers" as well. They are just more her style than mine.
So she made out like a bandit.
