Just a word to the wise:

Don't buy something that someone won't answer your questions about. Conversely, don't sell anything you're not willing or able to answer questions about.

Some girl listed a cloth diaper cake for sale on a local wives' group. We happen to have a lot of wives who are members of that group who are just getting into cloth diapering. The deal seemed a little fishy, though. "4 dozen cloth diapers! I paid $138, you pay $25! Great deal." OK, so at first glance, WOW!! 4 dozen cloth diapers?! Why that's practically birth to potty training, and for $25?? Send every PVT's wife with one on the way THIS deal.

Not so fast, though. What brand are the diapers? What style? Prefolds? Flats? Anything but Gerber? I was the one who asked the questions first. A fellow cloth diapering mom, who also makes diapers, joined in with a few questions I forgot. I made clear that I am a cloth diapering mom of two years (this makes me the most experienced cloth diapering mom on this post, but I didn't say that), and that we have a lot of rookies right now, and I would hate to see them get their hands on something that doesn't work, and get discouraged because of it, so we need to know exactly what kind of cloth diapers we're talking about here. I told her Gerber doesn't work as diapers, so if that's what it is, we're not interested, but if it's a quality brand, then it's a great deal, but we still need to know exactly what type of diapers they are just so people can know what they're getting.

She came back very defensively, and said, "It's a good deal. Even if it is Gerber, it's a good deal. You'd pay more for it at Wal Mart." I explained to her that it may be cheaper than retail even if it's Gerber, but no, in fact I would not pay more than that at Wal Mart, and neither would any of our other cloth diapering mommies, because we would not buy Gerber diapers in the first place, and to be stuck with 4 dozen of them, and out $25 would actually NOT be a good deal for us if that's what it is.

She then said that it was another brand I had named, one that is very high quality, but if that's what it was, then those diapers alone cost more than what she claims to have paid for the cake, or they're not prefolds, but are flats instead. I asked her if they were flats. She said, "Who cares if they're flats?!! It's a good deal!!" I explained once again that people have a right to know what they would be buying, and that just rattling off how good a deal it is, really doesn't do anything, because if it's a product any given one of us does not use, then buying it really is not a good deal at any price. We are just trying to make sure this product is something that one of us would want.

She got completely irate, and claimed to have sold it elsewhere. Yeah, right, but good riddance. As I said to one of our rookie cloth diapering moms later, I would bet anything that whole thing was Gerber flats. I'm so glad none of our new cloth diapering moms bought it.

It's something I've noticed about cloth diapers, though. People who don't use cloth, think a cloth diaper is a cloth diaper, and that they don't need to give any details of what exactly they're trying to unload on me (or my friends, or someone I'm teaching to use cloth). 100% of the time, it's something completely God Awful that would turn absolutely anybody off of cloth diapering. Of course, in finding that out, they'll tell us we should use it as burp rags. Sorry, but my $2/each diaper service quality prefolds do fine pulling double, triple, quadruple duty.... basically, filling any capacity I need them to, as diapers, burp rags.... I even wiped up spilled coffee with one the other day! I don't need a bunch of otherwise useless Gerbers getting mixed in with my stash, and neither does anyone else. It's simply not a product we can use. Just because it says cloth diaper on the package does not mean every person who cloth diapers will find it useful. What if I bought the worst quality disposable diapers on the planet... I mean, ones that have no leg elastic, fasteners that come undone all the time, even holes for a tail in random ones, and I tried to get you to buy them by saying, "Disposable diapers! They're a really good deal!" and you asked me what brand, and I just kept repeating what a good deal they were? If you are a Huggies devotee, would you buy them? No. You would not. So why would we cloth diapering mommies just buy any old thing made of fabric and marketed as a diaper?

It reminds me of when I raised goats, and everyone under the sun would try to sell us the worst quality goats for the craziest prices. You'd hear what the prices were and figure they had to be show quality if they're getting that much. Then you arrive at the farm, and see a bunch of scrub goats they picked up at the auction for $25 apiece to eat down brush in a horse pasture. Nope, sorry, not giving you $100 apiece for that. Yes, I know, you have a lot of goats. I don't care that you'll give me the food bowl for free. I'm not taking on that feed bill when it will get me nothing. People often did not understand this. After all, I raised goats, did I not? Well, yes, I did, but just like with this, just any one wouldn't do.


Another thing I learned in raising livestock is that in at least 100% of cases, when someone won't answer questions about what they're trying to sell you, and gets defensive when asked very legitimate things about their product, they are definitely going to screw you if you take that deal. Who knew this would come in so handy?