Adventures in Craig
And his endless list
This week, California flooded because, according to Ellen Degeneres, “God is mad at us.” And you know what? I can think of a few reasons God might be mad at us (and a few more God might be mad at Ellen). As a Catholic, I understand how important it is to make God less mad at you, so for the past few years I have tried to be as environmentally responsible as I can. Unfortunately, I still fly on airplanes which means all of my efforts are a complete wash at best, but nevertheless, she (me) persists. One of my efforts is to buy secondhand when possible, which means plunging the depths of the retro internet, AKA scrolling Craigslist.
Craigslist was started by a man named Craig in 1993 because his girlfriend demanded he stop surfing every day and “get a real job!” so he programmed a website on which he could sell said surfboard, in the process giving himself a real job.
Just kidding, that’s not true! It was started by a man named Craig, though. Craigslist is a message board-like site where you can resell everything from chickens to sofas. You can also find things like jobs and apartments and sex workers, but let’s stick to making God less mad at me.
Here is what happens when you find a post for something you like:
Make sure the thing you like is a) not gross and b) not being sold by a serial killer. Usually, you can tell this fairly quickly, mostly by the number of capital letters the seller uses in their item description.
When you ascertain that the item is cleanish and won’t lead to your grisly death, you message the seller a fun description that conveys that you are not a serial killer.
If the item is good and well priced, chances are the person will email you back telling you it has already been sold and the listing will quickly disappear, like sand through the hourglass (remember Aladdin even though it’s canceled now?).
OR
A miracle occurs, and the seller agrees to your price! You trek to their home, which undoubtedly is in a neighborhood you never knew existed and you will likely never encounter again. It will afford you a brief sliver of insight into this person’s life at a vulnerable moment. After all, we get rid of things when they’re no longer serving us, which means something has changed! Because you’ve done your proper screening they will be friendly and nice and not murder you but you both will be doing your best to make your interaction as quick as possible so you can get along with your day.
I don’t know if ultimately this has made God less mad at me but at least it’s made me less mad at myself for giving money to Jeff Bezos. Now I can give it to some nice person in North Hollywood who I assume is not building a yacht so big they will demand a bridge be dismantled to accommodate it!
I’m currently sitting on a nice big bouncy medicine ball that I obtained from a woman who asked me not to ring the bell so her dogs wouldn’t bark. Was it a pandemic purchase? Bought in the dark days of empty gyms? An orb on which to hone stability in a time when the center wouldn’t hold? If so, what optimism! After all, why keep working out if there wasn’t a world waiting for us on the other side? And indeed there was, and that gym reopened, and now the exercise ball was taking up space at home, which had once again become home for the most part.
And now it’s in my home until the day I have no use for it and a stranger comes here, inspecting the ball and asking me if Venmo would be okay. It’s the cycle of life, and it moves us all (remember The Lion King even though it’s not canceled now?) and I for one am very glad Craig decided to sell that surfboard.