Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Craigslist

Dear Craigslist Potential Purchaser of My Brand-New Size 8 Purple Classic Cardy Ugg Boots,

Um, where to even start?

I have a wishbone to pick with you.

[It's a wishbone and not a regular bone because I really wish that you would take things between us a little more seriously. So along with my grievance, I am also sending some well-intentioned hope and goodwill that we can come to a place of mutual understanding.]

When you decided that you wanted my impulsively-bought purple corduroy Ugg boots which I put up for sale solely on the basis that I did not want to be rocking yarn legs for the summer plus I did not know they were made with sheepskin, just how urgent exactly was your desire for them?

At the time, I thought you were for real. Yeah, that's right, for real.

I offered the boots at half off the sale price at which I originally bought them. Already a serious bargain. You offered me your genuine interest in owning said boots and 80 percent of my selling price. This is not a word or logic problem. It's just the facts. As far as I could tell, the boots were as good as yours.

Except something went awry, didn't it?

Where exactly?

Oh, I don't know.

How about that you never responded when I asked for a good time and location to make the exchange? You just somehow expected the boots to magically teleport into your possession and my wallet to simultaneously fill with chump change.

The travails of "communicating" on the Internet.
photo courtesy of Flickr and CarbonNYC

Then, a few days later, apropos of nothing, you wrote me again asking if I still had the boots and quoting a price even lower than your first price and offering a location for the drop-off.

Scare tactic or just plain gumption?

Sadly, I still had them as you were the only person who expressed any interest in purchasing winter boots in the summertime to begin with. I did appreciate that about you. We did share that quality.

Then the gears ground to a halt once more because I agreed again quite naively, asked for your original offer, and put forth an acceptable time frame and place. Again, you did not respond.

If anybody would believe it because I can't at this point, about three weeks later, you wrote me again asking about the boots. This time, it was like I had won a little of your trust. You not only gave a location, consistent price, and date for the exchange, you also went ahead and gave me a time block.

Aha! The wary stray pup is finally eating right out of my hand.

But alas, I got too confident. I put the boots in the trunk of my car and expected the best possible outcome.

But when push came to shove, you just couldn't deliver, could you?

I had the boots, the time frame, the location, the vehicle, and the date in aligned harmony. All that was left was an exact time for the physical exchange of goods for money.

But you, you left me hanging! You let those poor woven feet-n-calf-clingers melt in the back of my car.

It was all over as far as I was concerned.

It is like a frustrating and lonely game of Whack-a-Mole, in fact.
photo courtesy of Flickr and CarbonNYC

And now, two months later, the coup de grace, you write me again just to "check in if I still have these boots! Let me know! Thanks!"?!?!

As if it's no big deal! Dishonoring everything that has already happened between us! What do you take me for? Probably the guileless naif that I am, but camman.

As far as I can tell, the sacred vendor-seller covenant has been violated not one, but copious times, with your dubious behavior. Please desist with your tomfoolery and pull-over-eyes-woolery!

In fact, I think the boots leave all that is left to be said, plain and simple: Ugg.

I just want a clean break.

Sheepishly & Anonymously,
sale-epxfe-1183511192@craigslist.org

I wonder if we knew how long we had a person for, we would live or love any differently.

Yet, all moments are still authentic, and the ones we remember are carried with great weight.

A year later, and it still feels like I just woke up.

Miss you, Alice.

Via Facebook

Navigating the Choppy 9-to-5 Seas

So I get to work today still in my long weekend mourning period and what do I see but the chair spawn on my desk next to my keyboard, yes, the very same keyboard WHERE I DO SOME OF MY FINEST WORK/WEB EXPLORING.


The cleaning peeps must've thought I dropped it and was too lazy to pick it up for about 2.5 weeks (so they finally did it for me out of pity/concern).

GAWWWWRRRR. Don't they know and recognize that it's a piece of office offal! A rolling, spinning device's droppings! A piece of furniture's half-twin/afterbirth?!

Well.

Since it does, more or less, look like an ergonomic wrist guard for the keyboard, I gueeeesssss I'll use it.

I mean, the emotional damage has already been done. In addition, it feels quite nice under my bony hand-arm joints.

Maybe I will reinvent my work space as a safe haven for office supply mutants. I'll organize coffee breaks, luncheons, the whole shebang...for just me and my bent-out-of-shape paperclips, jammed staplers, dried out white-out, three-legged desks, disconnected phones, non-functional mouse pads, half-operational plus charred headphones, inkless pens, and abandoned plastic folder containers.

Don't Be Gel-ous. This Might Be Silica, But It's Real!

So many of you all, like myself, may have indulged in the purchase of a pair of shoes from time to time.

When you bought these shoes, you may have noticed that, in the box in which they were contained, came a dainty little packet or two labeled SILICA GEL and DESICCANT (in all caps, just like I wrote).

Each packet was a smidge smaller than a sugar packet, and it feels like there were delightful fancy pebbles inside.


Perhaps you wondered what are these strange packets, and how did I get so lucky? Oh well, there's never a bad time for a snack...

WAIT! EXCEPT! WAIT! JUST HOLD ON! EXCEPT! EXCEPT THAT!

Also on these packets, it says in big bold letters the following: DO NOT EAT and THROW AWAY.

But they come in a shoe box occupied by shoes. Is someone really holding on to these chemical sachets forever, let alone consuming their contents?!

There's definitely a back story.

Did someone want to preserve their silica gel packets for time eternal in a buried time capsule, and not just in order to keep it humidity-free?

Did someone else want to sprinkle their contents over a freshly prepared tiramisu?

So, of course, warning labels were created as a desperate just-in-case measure. The saddest part is DO NOT EAT is written in quotes, i.e., "DO NOT EAT" as if it should be read with an arched eyebrow and a bad attitude.

Consumer Inner Monologue

Silica gel, where is this relationship going? Won't be you be mine? No, you say THROW [ME] AWAY. But how about if I just had a quick nip of you? I mean, you say DO NOT EAT [ME] but the quotes tip me off that this is some kind of a hipster threat that shouldn't be taken seriously.


But no, after further research, you are poisonous and scary and sometimes used in cat litter.

Good day, sir!

P.S. Further spewing of knowledge in a kid-friendly format, and one man's personal account of eating silica gel, all courtesy of the globe's most tangled tubes.

Candid Scamera

I just got scammed by a door-to-door salesmen! I feel so dirty and ashamed.

The weird thing is even as my mother was telling me I was clearly getting scammed, instead of being a child and saying, "Mommy. Help me! I'm scared!" or being an adult and saying, "Mother dear, you indubitably make an infallible point," I went with petulant teenager and pulled a "You don't know me, lady! I got this!" sort of bravado that I have never before possessed in my life up until this specific situation in which I clearly did not, in any way, shape, or form, have the upper hand, or even, the upper hand-me-down (i.e., collective wisdom from the ancestral spirits).

I had just returned from a tell-all visit with the dentist in which my gums begged for their life as they were poked, prodded, and asked insipid questions about their upkeep, and they squealed, or rather bled, all the sorry details or lack thereof while my teeth looked on silently in horror—wire-caged, ghostlike slabs that they are.

I was also in full sleep-deprivation mode in which I was too fatigued and disoriented to even lie down (bedrock bottom, folks). I was merely wandering from one section of the house to the next trying to make sense of this spatial domain in which I found myself, touching walls and faces (even the repair guy who was over was subject to my zomboid query grunts).

Anyway, so some ruddy-cheeked chap comes to our door with a fake fundraiser spiel and a dream of impressionable, naïve minds. 

I'm supposed to answer it because my dad is with the repair guy, my mother is ironing, everyone is fulfilling their antiquated societal roles, and I am supposed to handle the door business as the overgrown girl-baby/indentured servant of the house.

As soon as this guy opened his mouth, 67 percent of me knew that he was lying, and yet, the other 33 percent said, well, hold on now. Let's hear him out. He probably has some great points to make, some things you haven't even considered yet, some brand-new, still-in-their-packaging falsehoods fresh off the pathological press!

He had an alright story, but it had about as many holes as a bylaw involving Swiss cheese. He was trying to raise money for a trip for his fellow honor students by soliciting book donations to a children's hospital. A couple questions ethereally flitted through my numskull: Why aren't they raising their own money? Why is the money going to books for a children's hospital instead of the trip? Why is this guy telling me he's trying to work on his public speaking?

Plus the recession. What was I thinking? Well, I have tried to make it clear that I wasn't.

So I tell him what anybozo would say and I declare, "Alright then, I'll donate two books." I don't ask him any details, not about the trip, not about the books, not about the children's hospital, not about his fellow students, not about (most importantly) himself, and I merely declare, "Let me go get my checkbook!" As if I'm supersold on this idea and he hasn't even begun to expel any effort yet.

Meanwhile back at the ironing ranch, I go upstairs to retrieve my checkbook leaving that sun-blistered sop on the front porch with his stack of cajoling papers and my mother begins the biggest verbal eye roll of all time. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I TOLD YOU TO SAY 'No, Thank You!' HE'S CLEARLY A SCAM ARTIST!!! DID HE GIVE YOU EVEN HALF A REASON TO BELIEVE ANYTHING HE'S SAYING?!? DON'T YOU THINK IN THIS ECONOMY PEOPLE WOULD DO ANYTHING TO MAKE SOME MONEY?! WHEN I FIRST CAME TO THIS COUNTRY, I FELL FOR EVERYTHING BUT I LEARNED THE HARD WAY, MOST DOOR-TO-DOOR PEOPLE ARE JUST TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOU!!!!"

Instead of reacting, I just mused about whether she was including the Girl Scouts and their evil cookies in her damning diatribe seeing as how my sister and I were both, at one point, part of that famed, well-intentioned cult.

Then, in the time-honored tradition of mothers and daughters everywhere, I said, "LET ME HANDLE THIS. STOP BEING A BULLY. HE SAID [FAKE FAKE FAKE BLAH BLAH BLAH] SO IT'S FINE. IT'S FINE!!!" I even mimed a door slam for dramatic effect since I didn't actually have one to slam.

Then as if it was no big deal, I went and paid him. And thereby signed away my dignity and self-worth to make a fake book donation for a real children's hospital to somehow raise money for a fake student trip that this guy wasn't even going on, but was merely raising money for to improve his public speaking skills. Um.

I'd even buy a vacuum from a squirrel! I would!

photo courtesy of Flickr and kthypryn

The weird thing is the repair guy kind of got in the middle of our transaction because he had to check the door while I was writing a check and the scam artist was trying to look earnest and less sweaty, and in so doing, the repair guy gave the scam artist the evil eye-cold shoulder one-two punch combo.

Then my dad, one of the world's top 10 cynics, came over and asked the scam artist for the breakdown, and then chose to believe him also. In retrospect, I think he was trying to defend my shaky honor, but I'm too sheepish to ask for an official statement.

Anyhowser, as I held the fake receipt in my hand, which much to my delirious realization said in big letters on it "This company is in no way affiliated with any students, schools, fundraisers, or charities" and watched him walk away, an undisclosed amount richer (*shame game*), I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I would need to Google his "company."

And so I did. And, wouldja lookit that, it's a scam. In fact, a scam that's coming up on its 10-year anniversary! So really I was just paying tribute. Yeah, that's it. The things we tell ourselves to stay passably human...*goes off muttering and sputtering into the sunset*

Retrospective/introspective addendum: Why did I do it full well knowing that it was the fakest fake that ever barely existed? In all honesty, I can't quite say. One part genuine curiosity, two parts rebelling against mother figure, one part good-hearted gullibility, and one part incomprehensible disbelief. And I'd do it again! No sweat! Except the sweat on that guy's guilty mug. I mean, wow.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wire some money to Nigeria.

photo courtesy of Flickr and Mykl Roventine

Everyone's Wired These Days (And No, I Don't Mean Bugged!)

Here's my current Gchat list.


Mob connections, you say? Well, mostly Goodie Mob and Mobb Deep. And by connected, I mean, yeah, I've heard of 'em.

Good(ie) times.

P.S. I put yellow tape around the chair offal from yesterday so that the janitors know a crime scene when they see one. And it's still here today, untouched. But of course, there's plenty of red tape around here already! Zing!!!

(I'm just going to send around a high-five in an intraoffice envelope for that one! Just sign off on it once you get it, and pass it along.)

I Would Like to Expense All Future Therapy That Results From This Incident

So work just got really weird.

I was hitting that afternoon wall (you drones know what I'm talkin' 'bout!) in terms of motivation and productivity, and my alterego Slothface was about to make an appearance, when suddenly I felt something soft and spongy underneath my too-casual-for-midweek flip flop. I look down at the floor, and it appears my office chair has expelled something from itself.


Now I know that sounds insane. But I'm serious. My office chair has spawned some kind of baby office chair/third armrest/twin that it may have partially eaten in the factory but it finally managed to spew out of its conscience.


Also nearby this chair creature was a fresh ketchup stain that appeared out of nowhere. Yes, ketchup, as in a poor, sticky substitute for blood in an elementary school play!


Is someone trying to frame me? At my desk? With fake blood and office furniture spawn? I, for one, am intrigued.

This is like an R.L. Stine Goosebumps plot*, and I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Keep it up, Wednesday! We're almost there (i.e., the weekend! AMIRITE?!)!

*To back my point up further, Wikipedia describes Goosebumps plots as such [my comments in square brackets and sexy italics]:

"The primary protagonist(s) of a Goosebumps story is often situated in a remote location or somehow isolated from typical societal conventions [Totes me!]. This can be as simplistic as comfortable suburban areas, or as exaggerated as boarding schools, foreign villages, campsites, unfamiliar relatives' homes or oversea areas [Or office cubes! Hello!]. The books in the Goosebumps series usually feature semi-homogenous plot structures with normal kids being, frequently indirectly, involved in scary situations; chapters end in cliffhangers, and after the central conflict has either been or appears to have been resolved, there is often a twist ending [What's more of a twist than no ending?!]. Also, in his autobiography, R. L. Stine has stated that he often ends chapters in a state of suspense, like a cliffhanger [Bingo bango!]."