3.18.2009

craig and his friggin list

I always forget how entertaining Craig's List can be.
If you don't know what Craig's List is, it's basically like a local version of eBay, only instead of bidding or dealing with snail mail you email the person and arrange a time to view their product, pay them with cash and haul their crap away. Hoping it doesn't fall apart on you.
In all honesty, everyone I know (including me) has had positive experiences buying things from Craig's List. Items such as a drum set, a car, a boat, a house, household furniture, etc. has been successfully purchased with pleasant results. It can be a real treasuer trove. I would buy this kitchen set in an instant. It makes me feel like I should have Amish friends. It also makes me want to make a wooden bench with my own hands or something productively earthy.
The FREE section is always interesting. Last week someone had milk that was going to expire. So they did what all people do, right? Opened it up to the public to come get some free gallons of milk her family wasn't going to ingest by the due date. Would someone really go out of their way and trust free milk from a stranger?
I like to see how people choose to display their product.Tables, for example, make sense to be placed in the middle of a kitchen. This looks like a happy home below. Someone really loved this table and took good care of it.Perhaps a wise owner might even clean the table or remove piles of paper and stuff from the surface. You know, just in case you want to give the customer the impression the item they are looking for is coming from a clean, organized home. That maybe you cared a little tiny bit about selling your table before you took the picture. I know it's hard to think about a way to make one's trash another's treasure, but it can be done! And you would be surprised how rare it is that people take time to think about the picture they take and post in hopes of selling their junk.
There are always a dozen ads with the shots taken out front. Good lighting, perhaps they tried to have a garage sale? It just makes sense and looks decent.Or! They dress it up a bit, like this family put together a nice little table setting that almost fit the table. They get a gold star for effort.
I like how you can find the most bizarre things. Like this table made from a Saguaro CACTUS.

I like to imagine the person selling the item, it's always a mystery, but occasionally you catch a little glimpse of their personal taste in the background of the shot. Perhaps a snappy t.v. hanging on the wall. Or a stained carpet with and AC/DC poster taped to the wall and empty beer bottles lined up on the counter. Or art deco busting out of every corner. The award for least desirable goods has to go to the people who take a photo of the item as it rots in the corner of their dirty garage. Next to broken bicycles and spare tires and a jacked up dresser with a missing drawer. Yeah, that screams this family knows how to take care of their things, I totally want to buy their stuff.
Today just checking out kitchen tables today to make sure I wasn't missing the deal of the century. And I was so happy to run into this one. The table could totally suck, but I almost want to buy it because it's completely awesome how this guy just jumps into the shot! I love this guy! He's totally like "Hey, look how happy my table makes me- you will have so much fun eating at this table. You know you want to buy it. But if you don't, it's okay cos I'm just this silly happy guy. Have a great day!"

This photo made me want to find stuff in my house to sell just so I could pose in a happy photo with it.