23 September 2018

Truth in Advertising 2


by Leigh Lundin

The 300
My friend Steve has a thing about penguins, but here his girl­­­­friend Sharon might draw the line. A self-aware, almost-23-year-old girl struggled to offer up her collection of three-hundred penguins. 300. God love her:
    “I’m going through a pretty weird time in my life right now– having just gone through a break-up and grad­­uated college and temporarily living in my parents’ house… Sifting through my room (which has become a strange amalgam of my adoles­­cence and burg­­eoning adult­hood), it’s been brought to my attention that I probably won’t ‘catch a man’ or have any­­one believe I’m about to turn 23 with 300 penguins and a bunch of purple furniture around, that looking at my current room one might think some sort of 13-year-old with develop­­­­mental issues is living here.”
As mentioned last week, I ended up with a couple of vehicles I didn’t need and decided to sell them through Craig’s List. They were flawed and I made that as clear as possible. It occurred to me both had a criminal element behind them, hence today’s article.

In case anyone wondered, there really is a Craig, Craig Newmark. He and CEO Jim Buckmaster (known for his haiku error messages) run the company in San Francisco. Craig’s List solved the problem of intense antipathy between sales and technical staff by employing no salesmen, which caused revenues to soar. At one point, eBay bought a 25% stake in the company, but after an exchange of lawsuits over eBay’s misuse of proprietary information, Craig’s List bought out eBay’s interest.

Craig’s List as Entertainment

Once Craig’s List converted from simply carrying local events to job listings to want ads for goods and services, peculiar items began to surface. Adverts appeared for positive pregnancy tests and ‘clean’ urine, apparently prized by drug users.

One person wanted to hire a full-time texting assistant at $10 an hour. A bride-to-be suffering a shortage of bridesmaids advertised for young women, “hot, but not hotter then me.”

Another girl worried about her sanity wanted to solve a mystery– The Case of the Clueless Chick. I have a possible solution, too. Many chickens can fly, so she might have spotted a Bantam on the fire escape.

A purse-snatcher became smitten with his victim. That’s not actually the creepiest part– you have to read it.

Amusing ads began to show up. My favorite offered an autographed first edition of Plato's Republic. Socrates would have been proud.

Then we glance at the pets section. “This kitty … will fiercely defend your house, even against you. Has a very soft and furry belly like a teddy bear – however he will bite your face if you try to touch it. For the love of God, someone please take this thing out of my house.”

That’s how I felt about the following Ford Explorer in this second part about cars and petty crimes.

2. Ford Explorer

A pleasant lady with an unpleasant adult son happened to owe me for services rendered. The debt, the lady, the obnoxious son… The advertisement below explains it. (No, that's not the son, but a generic police photo.) Within the past few days, someone flagged the ad, thinking it promoted drugs rather than opposed them. Sheesh, some people can’t read. Oh well… I’ve already sold it.

CL Orlando > for sale > cars & trucks > by owner…

1999 Ford Explorer

generic prison inmate (face blurred) make:
model:
year:
VIN:
condition:
cylinders:
drive:
fuel:
odometer:
paint:
size:
title:
trans:
type:
Ford
Explorer
1999
1FMZU3…
fair
6
4WD
gasoline
155 500
white
full-size
clean
auto
SUV

I ended up with this white 1999 Ford Explorer in the weirdest way. A woman decided to get her son a new car as a reward for staying off drugs. Days later, police arrested him for dealing. Mom was furious. To pay his legal and rehab fees, she got rid of her son’s old car and I ended up with it. It’s not beautiful, but it’s tough.

Comes with a hi-end radio. Rear seats fold to make a bed or extend the storage. Features cast alloy wheels, police push bar, and no cocaine. Promise.

Transmission rebuilt by AAMCO. I need to rebuild the guts of the driver’s door- replace the power lock and probably the window mechanism. Buy it before I finish, you save money. Catch yourself a deal- I’m looking for best offer, dime bags and kilos not accepted.






4 comments:

  1. I can see that life gets more interesting if one has automotive skills!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can see that whenever I'm bored I should cruise to Craig's List rather than Facebook - much more interesting, and less inflammatory!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm certain a chicken could fly if it wanted to, because I watched a female wild turkey fly over a fence into my yard to eat at our bird feeder.

    There's a product called Urine Luck, actually a selection of products, from a company in Cincinnati that purports to help ppl pass a drug test ... http://www.urineluck.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Janice, You never know. I figured why not make the car ad entertaining.

    That's true, Eve. With all the zillions of products, you can shop while you chuckle.

    Elizabeth, we had different breeds, but some of the chickens were good flyers. Occasionally, they took 'free range' privileges a bit too far, and decided they didn't have to return to the brooder house at night. In such cases, they liked perching in the rafters of a 2-storey building, so we knew they could fly at least that high.

    So Elizabeth, dare I ask how you know Urine Luck? ((laughing) I can't believe that name.)

    ReplyDelete

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