PLEASE! PLEASE, PICK ME!

It's me, Maura. Benedetto has asked me to guest blog. If he likes what he reads, he may invite me to write here regularly. I hope I make the cut!

I'm appropriately suspicious of Craig's List, but Paul has used it to solicit tutees, and I have used it to give things away. Actually, I beg people to come take my stuff so I won't one day find myself buried under used Post-Its, or Ziploc bags given to me by boys I liked in elementary school, or wrapping paper that has lost its sentimental value because I don't remember what present it came with or who gave me the present. Until recently I was wont to hold on to ephemera for dear life, because I NEEDED my stuff and I MIGHT use it someday. Well, I have eradicated my packrat tendencies and have downsized my way to a simpler, neater life. Thank you, Craig and your list, for facilitating the giving-away of my useless junk.
Anyway, I recently turned to Craig's List (in addition to an agency, local newspapers, several local colleges and many, many other resources) to search for a nanny for Benedetto. I found a mix of ads, some quite professional, some shoddy, and some untintentionally hilarious. If you ever have nothing to do and no one to talk to and only free hand (like, for example, when you are nursing your child in the middle of the night and figure you might as well not try to accomplish anything), you should browse Craig's List ads, especially those in the "free stuff" section. Better yet, POST in the free stuff section. You will receive enough galactically silly e-mails to keep you laughing for eternity. One time I posted offering a shoe rack that I had bought years ago and never used. (See above: I believed I might need it. It was so white and so lustrous and so compact, and so, you see, I couldn't part with it.) For days I received e-mails about the shoe rack. One person kept writing increasingly urgent and increasingly conspicuous messages.
1. subject: pick me
2. subject: pls, pick me
3. subject: please, PICK ME
Then, all of a sudden, he progressed to
4. subject: PLEASE! PLEASE, PICK ME!
Why did he importune us with such perseverance? Well, the body read something like this:
I want to give the shoe rack to my girlfriend as a surprise. Oddly enough, we received messages from a few guys who wanted the shoe rack for their girlfriends. One guy said he "needed" the shoe rack, because his girlfriend's shoes were taking over their room.

But, my absolute favorite e-mail read (I kid you not) as follows: The shoe rack is SO, SO GORGEOUS. Any chance you are coming by Allerton Avenue with the shoe rack?
We ended up giving the rack to someone who wrote an ordinary e-mail, but I would have loved to give it to the author of that e-mail. I could have written, yes, the so, so gorgeous shoe rack and I just happen to be going on a jaunt to Allerton Avenue. Where shall we meet? Ha!

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering if I have a point, what it is, and when I will get to it. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I intended this entry to be about nothing. Why? Well, I've tried to keep blogs before. Tried and failed miserably. I felt like I had to say something important and to say it eloquently, and since I couldn't meet my own standards, I set most of my entries to private as soon as I finished them. I no longer feel that pressure. Look, I'll be honest with you--I'm not trying to write anything earth-shattering. For now I'll just try to keep you entertained!