It's Not Even a List

I've been watching "Mad Men" a lot lately.  It's a great show, and it's really fun to see how different things were in our own country only 50 years ago.  Nobody wears seatbelts, pregnant women drink and smoke, and a housewife was shown putting hot water into a little box in her freezer for some reason.  That one baffled me, but I guess it was something they used to do.

If they ever make a show in 2060 about what life was like half a century ago, I hope they include Craigslist.  I have full confidence the website won't be around 15 years from now, let alone 50.  And like I was with the freezer, people will see someone using it and think "...what was that?"

For those of you who don't know, or those of you that just saw the "Craigslist" episode and are confused like I am about the freezer, let me explain.  Craigslist is a sort of online classified section.  You can put up your things for sale, or buy someone else's.  People usually put a flashy headline like "Free dirt." or "BRAND NEW SET OF DIAPERS".  Inside, you can put a picture, where people will look at your item and see that it's either stained horrifically, or clearly stolen and you're trying to get rid of it for any sort of profit because the local pawn shop can only buy so many sets of dumbbells.  After you place your ad, you have the pleasure of seeing the wonderful responses you get from your fellow Americans interested in buying your fine product.  And by "buying your fine product", I mean "scamming you out of at least 500 dollars".  Rest assured, this scammer will have a fine story, such as him being the prince of an unknown African country who needs your help to rescue the princess from the evil King Koopa, or possibly a young girl has been kidnapped in an unnamed Asian country with Claire Danes and has no hope of escaping unless YOU can somehow wire her 800 dollars for a new passport, but anything would help.  Yes, these people are in dire straights, and yet somehow with the precious little time they had left they chose to log on to the internet, search for "Seattle Craigslist" on google, and find the first stranger selling a couch in great condition.  That would be the first person I would think to ask for help if I was in trouble in a foreign land.

Should you be lucky enough to get an actual American in your city interested in your goods, you must first deal with a series of unkept appointments and inane questions such as "My daughter wants this couch, will it fit in her room?"  or statements such as "I thought this desk was going to be more like a bookshelf.  I don't want it anymore."

Oh and there's also a section for creeps and perverts to unintentionally hit on each other.