Now is the time of year to review all that has passed during 2012. You know how it goes: celebrity marriages, celebrity divorces, extreme weather records, deaths, best and worst movies. Our favorite moments come courtesy of postings on Craigslist. Annually, Craigslist users nominate their favorites for inclusion in the “Best Of” category. A recent favorite of ours from Pensacola, Florida:
guy with skid mark, bought gallon of whole milk, circle k – w4m
i was in my bikini at the circle k, you came in with your short shirt and your bike shorts on. they were white and you had a pretty sexy skid mark staining your behind. you got 11 sticks of beef jerky and a gallon of whole milk, then rode off on your bicycle. i will know its you because you paid in pennies.
[div class=attrib]From Wired:[end-div]
Homer Simpson’s famous ode to alcohol—”The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems”—might apply in equal measure to Craigslist, the wildly popular, barebones site where one can find all of life’s problems and solutions, including: a freelance writing gig, roommates, a sex partner, a man-sized fiberglass chili pepper, a lifetime supply of hot sauce, and coffee beans that have been ingested, digested, and excreted by someone living in Portland.
Each year, Craigslist users across the country flag their favorite classified ads for inclusion in the “best of” category. The bar to inclusion is high, but somehow each year America comes through with memorable postings that remind us just why we went ahead with this whole Web 2.0 thing.
This year was no exception. Here are a few of our favorites.
Paging Michelangelo
“Artist needed. Must love owls,” said one September post, which had something quite specific in mind.
We need an artist to depict the following: an owl skeleton with a parrot on its shoulder. The parrot is not a skeleton and is very colorful. The parrot has a peg leg, with a pirate hat on. The owl has an eye patch and a gold chain necklace with a skull on the pendant of said necklace. The skull in the pendant has an eye patch on the opposite eye of the owl (long story there don’t ask). The owl skeleton also has on a wizard’s hat with that typical wizard hat wrinkle. The owl is standing on a cowboy hat from a whale’s spout. This all is within a snow globe. That santa is holding with his only good hand because his other hand is a hook. Mrs. Clause is pulling on Mr. Clause’s coat with one of those dinosaur mouth grabbers that all 80’s children know.
The artist who could handle the commission would get both some cash and “a prize.”
(Side note: the oddly specific nature of this image request parallels those often received by our own creative director, Aurich Lawson, who has fielded article image suggestions that make this one look absolutely normal by comparison.)
Needed: one lap for aging cat
Next up, the “feline lap surrogate,” which I want to believe is a joke but fear is not. This job post is exactly what it sounds like, viz., the surrogate goes to a home each morning from 8am-12pm and gets paid $15 an hour to sit in a chair and “allow my cat to sit on their lap (the cat is attention seeking, and has been decreasing my productivity as of late).” The ideal candidate must have cat handling experience and no allergies.
“I do not need anyone in the afternoon since the sun warms the window sill by that point, and the cat will prefer the window sill to a lap,” the ad concludes. “Breakfast and lunch will be provided each day.”
[div class=attrib]Read the entire article after the jump.[end-div]