The Erwin Pawn Trade-A-Thon Is True To It’s School

Another gainful Saturday of buying, selling, and trading is behind us.

Saturday mornings on News Talk 940 we set aside conservative rantings, the November election, and news for three hours of want ads on the radio.  You may not learn anything or be better informed but those other shows won't make you money either.

If you've never joined us you may not be aware that Trade-A-Thon sits at the corner of usefulness and satire.  If you don't make money you'll at least have a good time.   Any show that requires mattresses to be sanitized cannot take itself too seriously.

THE BIG QUESTION

The first thing we do when we host a new caller is ask them a poll question before they give their items.  It's a way to gauge your worldview and it provides a theme that ties together all our calls.

Week 0 of high school football is now behind us.  At KIXZ we are excited to bring you two local high school football games every week all season.  Our sister station, 98.7 Jack FM is also your home for Friday Night Live, the high school football scoreboard show.  We are up to our ears in high school football at Townsquare Media.

Usually the poll question is a "this or that" or "yes or no" questions.  This week we wanted to stay with the high school football theme.  We were curious which high school was your favorite.  As expected we got a lot of answers, almost as many as we had calls.

What is you favorite high school?

(listed in the order they appeared)

New Deal(G, 1988), Palo Duro(Porky, 2010) +2, Lovington, River Road +3, Roswell High, Borger, Pampa, Randall, White Deer, Caprock, Tascosa, Gruver, Bishop Gorman, Claude, Amarillo High +2,  Farewell, Hereford, Canyon

RULE #6

At the beginning of each hour I go over and list the five official rules of conduct for The Erwin Pawn Trade-A-Thon.  This way the newbies are brought into the circle and the seasoned vets are reminded how it works.

I also bring you a special Rule #6 each week that changes based on what inspiration hit me over the previous week.  Last week I had some issues with online shopping.

The internet has made it all too easy to comparison shop.  You can driver yourself crazy trying to find the best price on an item you want.  Unfortunately you can't simply look at the listed price to determine how much the item will cost from any given retailer.

Shipping charges are an awfully frustrating thing to get a handle on.  On Amazon it is not uncommon to see an item offered for sale from several marketplace sellers, all with different prices.  But look close and you'll see they all charge various amounts for shipping.

It gets doubly frustrating to comparison shop when you have to not only factor in the list price but also the shipping cost being charged by that retailer.  I've seen an item listed at different prices, different shipping charges, yet both were using UPS.  Something is flaky in Denmark.

Obviously retailers are using shipping charges to hide costs for the item to allow them to list it for sale at a price lower than you might find elsewhere.  This means your comparison shopping is useless unless you factor in shipping.  That sounds like a rule.

Rule #6:  When comparison shopping online be sure to include the shipping cost which will vary from retailer to retailer.

Good luck to your favorite high school this football season, happy price checking on the internet, and remember, you are invited to buy, sell, and trade this Saturday from 9am-Noon.  If you are shy you have our permission to simply kick back and listen.