Craigslist Kafkaesque Misadventure

Bored and sick, I thought I might just have a little fun on Craigslist. Now, granted, "a little fun on Craigslist" for most people usually involves buying teal-colored teacups or cruising the "causual encounters" section for some pretend action, but I thought I might try a little social experiment.

"What if I post a repulsively surreal ad, but use an attractive picture of a woman; who would respond?"

Well, sadly, the CL community is quick to flag posts, so my various attempts at posting surreal, entirely offensive personals were largely unsuccessful. ("read me the bible while I call you Uncle Steve" just didn't fly)

This was the best ad that I could come up with that was able to remain up for more than 15 minutes (it was up for about an hour):

What did I find in the responses? Well, first off, most people online either can't spell or aren't interested in spelling correctly (who knew so many words were spelled with numbers?). Second off, it appeared that most people were typing with one hand/while orgasming.

Not a shock there either.

Out of about 70 or so, here are my favorite responses:

1) THE CHEF: Look out for his Joycean prose, especially in the line "soooooo good like a cornicopia of wonderful herbiliciousness".

2) MR. PUT U TORKEY IN THAN OVER LIKE 2 HURS: Mmmm...just say it out loud with me: "put u torkey in than oven like 2 hurs"...if that smooth talking doesn't get you sizzling hot, I don't know what does...


3) THE GAMBLER: There's B, who wants to meet me at Granny's Doughnuts so we can take the bus to a casino together. Mmmm...doughnuts, a bus ride and an inveterate gambler...what could be hotter?


4) THE SWIFTIAN WIT: Why this man isn't writing for The New Yorker is beyond me...


What else did I find?

1) More wangs than you can shake a stick at, if that's your idea of a good time.
2) A lot of "military servicemen" are trolling CL for hot action. They all have six packs and a tongue like an electric eel.
3) A lot of earnestly horny people who will look past the fact that this odd, obviously fake woman wants deli meats rubbed all over her body for sexual pleasure.

As a statement of our life and times, this ranks slightly below "TMZ".