Craigslist Ad #4

Juicer For Easily Manipulated Health-Conscious Person

Would you consider yourself a healthy person? Well chances are if you don't own a juicer, YOU'RE NOT. As countless late-night infomercials have taught me, the only way to be a happy, youthful person bursting with vitality and zestful energy is to consume all your food through a straw (which ironically is also how toothless old farts bursting with incontinence and racist slurs eat their meals).

C'mon! Join the Juicing Cult! Once you own a juicer you will seek out all sorts of juicing propaganda from credible sources on the internet i.e. Linda from Vermont. Doesn't she sound reliable? Who WOULDN'T believe everything a rich housewife suffering from apathy, owning too many porches, and a botched Botox job has to say about the "science" of juicing? You can spend HOURS lecturing and indoctrinating your friends, making them feel stupid and outdated for using their teeth to manually (not to mention savagely) grind up their food. With the revolutionary new technology of 'squeezing things until they puke out liquid' you will BE the Jones that everyone is trying to keep up with.

After just a week of exclusively ingesting juiced foods you will see the following results:

- diarrhea

- more diarrhea

- a rosey flush in your cheeks (from running to the bathroom from even MORE diarrhea)

- weight loss (from the inability to keep anything you eat from shooting out your ass 3 minutes later )

- improved intimacy with your partner (from the explosive diarrhea you unfortunately experienced on the couch while watching a funny movie together - now he knows EVERYTHING about you....)

- noticeably firmer gluteus maximus (from extreme butt cheek clenching while frantically searching for a restaurant and convincing the host that although you do understand and respect their No Public Washroom Except for Paying Customers policy, this really IS an emergency...)

- a deep connection with God (from the many conversations you had with him while on the toilet "Oh Dear God! Please make this stop! I promise to start going to church, and to volunteer at places that usually make me really uncomfortable, and to help little old ladies cross the street even though I know they're going to want to then chat about their grandaughter, Mackenzie and how lovely her 4th grade tap-dance year end concert was for 2 hours! PLEASE GOD! JUST CLOSE THE PORTAL TO HELL THAT MY ASSHOLE HAS BECOME!)

Sounds like its time to make that $100 investment in a juicer. Welcome to whole new way of life my friend.

Worth $199 for newest 1000 model. Since mine is a bit older and used, I'm asking $100 OBO

Please e-mail if you're interested or have any questions. Please refrain from sending pictures of your penis. Why do you think that's an appropriate way to respond to a juicer ad?!

Craigslist Ad #3

Typewriter for Aspiring Kerouac-ian

You: silly hipster with a penchant for writing pained prose on the topics of unrequited love and obscure metaphysical curiosities.

Me: Owner of a typewriter which would make writing those inspired musings seem infinitely cooler.

The typewriter: tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-DING!

A bit more about the typewriter:


- great condition Olympia SG-3 manual desktop typewriter - the VERY same make and model that Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist James A. Michener used (see picture below from museum)

- grey with sea-foam green accents (or in more pretentious language: "art deco colour scheme")

- relatively new ribbon and a free replacement ribbon that i special ordered from a crotchety old typewriter repair man who had since retired from the "biz" but still had a basement full of overstock. He sent it in a bubble wrapped envelope. You can have that too if you like. I may have popped some of the bubbles already. I'd say more than 70% remain. Estimated value of ribbon: $7.50, envelope: $1.75, hours of childish entertainment: unprice-able

- QWERTY keyboard layout making for an easy transition from your MacBook Pro

- portable! - weighing in at 35.4 lbs (thank you bathroom scale) this baby can be hauled around to any number of bleeding-heart communist GenX/Y hangouts that make you feel like you're "part" of the "cause" by ordering overpriced beverages and overly dry baked goods (100% gluten/flavour free).

There you have it. Looks like you can still spend every Saturday morning sitting in your favourite moonbeam/hippy-voodoo cafe smugly drinking your shade-grown organic coffee, while wearing your dark rimmed glasses sans lenses, all-season scarf, and ironic t-shirt, as you write your tragic dramedy screen-play in which the protagonist (insert Indie character name that is both quirky but believable i.e: Igby, Large or Gilbert Grape) comes to find meaning in his life after making sense of his dysfunctional upbringing in midwestern America with the help of a quirky yet troubled girl who will ultimately end up breaking his heart only AFTER teaching him how to use it. Shit dude, I think I just stole your screen play. Hey, but don't worry. There are 700,000 other hipsters in this very city writing the exact same movie. And besides, isn't the art more in the process and not the end result? Making money off your dream would be selling out, right? I get you. Deep stuff.

So c'mon hipster. Make the plebs in your hipster herd jealous and buy my typewriter today. They may have the same dark rimmed glasses, the same all-season scarf (my god, do you never get over-heated?!) and the same (albeit with a slight variance in smug humour) ironic t-shirt, but I can guarantee they won't have this typewriter. You will be the Hippest Of Them All (at the Hipster Ball).

$75 and you can be well on your way to the Cannes Film Festival where you will modestly shrug off all praise for your critically acclaimed film and be quoted as saying "I never wanted fame, just a medium to express the beautiful yet tragic nature of the human condition."

*Note: don't bring your fixie to come pick this beauty up. Its HEAVY. Or on second thought, do. That's exactly something a silly hipster would do......

Email me if you're interested or have any questions. I can also give you some suggestions on how your dramedy should end if you need them (how do you feel about land mines.....?)

Michener

Macnabb

Craigslist Ad #2

Looking For Agoraphobic To Buy My Bike Trainer

Afraid of fresh air? Potential human interactions? Zombie apocalypse?

But...

...still enjoy taking long bike rides? Well look no further! Instead of scrubbing tire marks from your hardwood floors and patching drywall where you took the corner from the kitchen a little too quickly, why not set up a bike trainer which would give you the experience of pedaling like you're in the Tour de France without the the inconvenience of leaving the house. Plus you can quit, shame-free, whenever you get tired with a bike trainer which is something they frown upon in the Tour (even if you just survived cancer and only have one remaining testicle. They do not suffer wusses gladly in the sport of cycling....FACT. )

But I digress.

So, this bike trainer is a Blackburn Basic TrakStand Trainer. I bought it some years ago with great intentions. Turns out I'm not quite the dedicated athlete I had imagined and plus I actually enjoy the great outdoors. I can even tolerate the Pacific West Coast perma-drizzle. Barely. But maybe you would rather train inside your cozy dry apartment while watching the 6th Season of Lost on DVD. That is definitely something you can't do on a bike that's pavement-bound. Unless you have a REALLY long extension cord.....

Due to hardly being used, this trainer is in great shape and ready to go to its next home of great intentions.

$100. Firm.

Here's a link to a well written write up on the performance of this trainer. Its full of all sorts of information that is not currently in my brain.

Blackburn Basic Trackstand Trainer

Craigslist Ad #1

Excellent condition Staples Executive Mesh-Back Manager's Chair for sale.

Paid $229 pre-tax, selling for $120.

Pickup only as I do not have a car. And past attempts to deliver large objects by bike have failed miserably. Hilariously entertaining for those stuck in traffic watching me try to balance a chest of drawers on my handlebars and NOT meet certain death from oncoming cars. Yes, HILARIOUS. But entirely unsafe. And who wants to put that sort of worry on their mother? Not me.

The chair is a goodly one. I'll be honest with you though, it didn't get a lot of use. This is because I sit on the floor a lot. Using cushions or kneeling. That is because my computer is only 2 feet off the ground. And because sometimes it pays to be that much closer to the floor - like ACTUALLY pays - I found $2.38 in small change when I was down here. So this chair just sort of sat in my home office to make me look more credible and "managerial." Alas, it is time to sell it as I am looking to move in the near future and hauling a manager's chair to a new location where it will NOT be sat on seems ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as say, a monkey wearing a hardhat and building low-rise apartment buildings (they're taking our jobs!) but enough to warrant mentioning.

You can either look at the chair's specs at this link:

Manager Chair Specs

or I can tell you a bit about it:

Its black. And rolls over hard surfaces. It has adjustable height AND adjustable recline tension (oooooooh). The armrests adjust up and down and the mesh backing keeps you cool when you find yourself sweating profusely while sitting. Perhaps you have a high stress job (investor? broker? customer service for a cell phone company?), or maybe you live in a hot climate (in which case why are you looking for chairs to purchase HERE? the shipping cost will bankrupt you), or maybe you are one of those hard core athletes that strap a chair to your back and do the Grouse Grind every morning at 6:00a.m. (in which case we say this mesh fabric "breathes" and "wicks moisture away"). I wouldn't presume to know anything about your life. Nor am I judging. Maybe you just sweat a lot. Is it glandular? Could be. All I'm saying is that the back of this chair is mesh and therefor allows for maximum air flow to keep YOU comfortable.

So there it is. You get a $229 (pre-tax!) chair for $120 (no tax!) (I think there's someone else selling one on craigslist for $160. His is "mint" condition. Which means that he's even less managerial than me. Or maybe he collects chairs and keeps them in mint condition and then trades them for other chairs in mint condition. Again, I make no judgments on what people do in their lives) and I get to go about my life on the floor but with more space in my office and less hassle when it comes time to pack. And to show my good faith, I'd even let it go for $100 and a bottle of wine. I have low standards in that department. And if the wine you pick is rubbish I'll use it in a stew. So if you ARE thinking of going for this option, make it red and I'll celebrate my new chairless-ness with a beef bourguignon.

Talking To Ralph On the Great White Telephone

Life is busy. Spring is here. Rodents are mating in my walls. Giant raindrops are splattering against my windows. My students are determined to kill me by touching every square inch of my piano with their little disease-impregnated fingers. So, long story short I'm feeling a bit sleep-deprived, sun-deprived and health-deprived.

But what's funny about that? Sounds like a bunch of whining to me. And if I read one more person's blog about the "trials and tribulations" of their daily life followed by some cheesy quote I will barf. Probably not actually barf. More a metaphoric barfing. Its been years since I did a literal barf. YEARS. And I think tequila shots at some sort of Western-themed bar back in University may have been the culprit. Mind you, does it really count as a barf if you don't remember the act itself, but instead hear a description of the act second-hand from a witness who wisely had one less tequila shot than you? That's a cheater barf I think. For it to be legit you have to be be able to recount the details in the first person. Whoah. How did this turn into a post about barf?? Ok. Enough. There are fucking children who read this blog.

My point: being short on time and energy but still wanting to put up something so Katy doesn't halt her daily visits (thus devastating my hit counter and making it appear that no one reads this thing) I'm posting an interlude of craigslist ads that I actually have taken the time to write. Turns out I can be motivated to write when there's the potential for cash at the end of hitting the "publish" button. It's the delusional way to call oneself a paid author. A paid author with a lot fewer belongings.....Hey! let me know if you want to buy anything! The Friend Special means not only do you get to pay the full asking price, but you also get to bring me a sandwich when you come pick your purchase up. Because that's what friends do for friends who are selling all their belongings. Right friend?

Mouse Maelstrom

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live inside a candy cane? Not once? I find that hard to believe. Judging from the nonsensical blogs you read (ex. this one), you're the sort of person who would have pondered habitation within the walls of genetically modified-corn-syrup-laden holiday treats at least once in your life. Fine, we'll play it your way and pretend you're not as crazy as you really are. Here's the answer:

Minty.

That's right. Minty. When sealed up inside a candy cane the only thing your senses will be able to register is intense brain-shattering minty-ness.

Which is exactly what I am living in right now. Did you know that mice have a natural aversion to mint? This is what the internet has taught me. I had to resort to Google since the surveys I left for the mice to fill out regarding their likes and dislikes have yet to be completed and returned. Well that's not entirely true, one did come back but in red ink. How hard is it to follow the instruction "please use a #2 HB pencil" ?! If you can lick the peanut butter off a trap without meeting certain death, then you can properly fill out a multiple choice survey dammit!

Right, so the internet told me that since mice don't like mint, a good way to make your house less desirable for them to live in is to saturate every molecule of matter in it with peppermint essential oil. So I spent a day dousing cotton balls with mint oil and shoving them in little holes, spraying the carpet perimeter of each room with peppermint infused water, and in general just doing my best to leave no surface un-minted. By nightfall the fumes were so strong I was having intense urges to go outside and hang festively over the branch of my neighbor's evergreen tree. So after all that work and all that delirium, you can only imagine how enraged I was to hear the scritchy-scratch of tiny vermin in my walls come 11:00pm. How is this possible?!

There is only one obvious answer: They were ready for it. They knew what was coming. Clearly they logged onto my computer while I was sleeping and searched my internet browsing history. "How To Destroy The Lives of Rodents" would have come up as a top hit. Sneaky buggers. And if you're a mouse who's just discovered the massive chemical warfare about to be unleashed on your kind, what do you stock up on? You guessed it: gas masks.

Teeny-tiny mouse-sized gas masks. There's an independent wholesaler based out of Texas that specializes in miniatures - you can get ANYTHING there but in 1/50th of the regular size. I bet that's who they went with. So not only are they resourceful fuckers but they don't even support the local economy! Yes, perhaps Mike the Miniature Man in Winnipeg isn't quite as skilled as Billy-Bob Baggarly but c'mon, do the words MADE IN CANADA not pull on your ethical heartstrings in any way?!

So there you have it. Astute, organized and outfitted for war. Can there be any other logical explanation of why my mint efforts failed so pitifully? No? Then Occam's razor it is.*

So if you're reading this mice, heed my message: I'M ON TO YOU. May we meet in battle. 2:00a.m. My kitchen. You with your toothpick ninja stick thingy, me with my tinfoil hat and laser gun made from toilet paper rolls and red cellophane. When its all said and done, only one of us will be nibbling holes in the bottom of Raisin Bran boxes.......

*Some may dispute that the simplest explanation probably ISN'T computer-savvy mice ordering combat paraphernalia online from a Texan. May I direct those folks here.

R-ant Redux.

The ants are back.

And this time they've brought a mouse with them as reinforcement. Not that I blame them, I did wipe out their entire colony last May with a deadly cocktail of borax and icing sugar. So apparently the collective pain-body of ants is real! Eckart Tolle will be fascinated to know this (because he reads my blog) and this pain-body lives on generations after such horrors as the Great Gen-sectocide of 2009. This new wave of ants is relentless, calculated and gives off the spooky vibe "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER." (insert Jennifer Love Hewitt joke here and flash to creepy dude in wellingtons wielding a large hook. Hey we all own saw that movie, some of us are just more honest about it than others...)

Getting off track.

Ants + mouse = scheduling nightmare for Sarah. Do you have any idea how stressful it is to be responsible for killing numerous species at once? I mean, where do you allot your time? Which pest gets priority? The mouse is a filthy rodent that carries disease and keeps me up at night with incessant scratching in my walls. The ants though are plentiful and just keep marching in 2 by 2 (hoorah! hoorah!). If only there was a combined product I could use to eradicate them both. An-ouse Annihilator. M-ant Murder Mist. Wow. Horrible product names. Someone's in for a pink slip this afternoon. Oh what? You think I don't have staff? You think a blog reaches this sort of stature as a one-woman show? Pff. Hardly. Hang on - Kevin! Where's my pickle bath?! You KNOW I can't blog if I don't soak for at least 45 minutes in a pickle bath! And while you're at it come braid my hair into those Princess Leia side buns I like and pay my Skype bill. What? He's an intern. Got him right off the internet. In this economic climate you can get people to do just about anything by promising them job security and benefits. Is it my fault if he assumes "benefits" mean extended medical and dental? I think the "benefit" of learning from me is worth double that. I'm sure he'll think so too. Maybe not after that root canal surgery he's planning to bill to his "insurance" lands him in financial ruin but there again, life lesson: never assume anything. And I was the one to teach it to him. See? Be-ne-fit. (sidenote: Sarah B.Mus.ed is always taking resumes.)

Back to the topic of mice and men. Oh wait, that was last night's Books-I-Pretend-I've-Read-to-Make-Myself-Seem-Smarter-Than-Someone-Who-Frequents-TheSuperficial.com Book Club meeting notes. I meant mice and ants, back to the topic of mice and ants.

This mouse is a real piece of work too. Total snot-wad. I have put down not one, not two, but three traps with juicy sultana raisins coated in organic Valentia peanut butter and not a single nibble (or subsequent neck snap). No please, continue to eat the particle board under my kitchen sink. I can see how that would be much more appetizing. You know, mice in general don't offend me but this one has made it personal. He's got me running around pounding on the walls like a crazed mental patient at 3:00 a.m. from his systematic scratching. And he's not just relying on good old fashion mousey-sense to drive me insane. No, I'm convinced this mouse has gone high-tech; an infrared camera at the very least. I can just picture him sitting there at Command Central with his teeny-tiny mouse feet up on his teeny-tiny mouse desk watching the screen zoom in on my face. When I'm juuuuust about asleep, that's when he makes his move. He starts quiet at first to make me wonder if I'd even heard him in the first place. I jerk my head off the pillow, hold my breath and wait to see if I hear it again or if it was just a figment of my imagination. When I'm convinced it was all in my mind, I let my eyes close, head drop back down on my pillow and begin drifting off into a peacefu-SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH. And then silence. Only to be filled with SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH once again until my silent breath-holding turns into a thunderous "I hear you, you little fucker!!" Oh yes, we play this little game of back and forth for quite sometime until finally he forgoes the coyness and steps fully into his destiny of Carnegie Hall Wall Scratcher Virtuoso and really picks up the tempo. "And now ladies and gentleman, the performer you've all been waiting for, its Melachi the Mouse soloing on Wood Paneling!" 'With a scratch scratch here, and a scratch scratch there. Here a scratch, there a scratch, everywhere a scratch scratch. Old Macnabber had a mouse. E-I-E-I-O....'

And of course his name is Melachi. How pretentious. I bet it means "rodent with asshole complex." Oh wait, Google says that it's Hebrew and means "messenger from God." Wow, God is trying to contact me through my uninsulated walls? Maybe tonight I should listen to see if I can decipher some divine meaning in those scratches. Or maybe God just sent a mouse to live in my wall. And keep me up. All night. Every night. Well shit, that can't be good. Hey God (he also reads my blog), is this about that time in 2nd grade when I smeared cheese all over the inside of Shannon Reimer's desk during recess? Because that bitch had it coming. (She really did).

Seriously God, its time to let old grievances go and call off your mouse. While you're at it, take the ants with you as well. They're starting to overrun my desk and compu-sdifwuha lairufg aldiuclae liua yscgaliywgef AHHHHHHHH HELP ME-lsiduhgsl siughsli NOOOO NOT THE EYESuehlsieu aliuali faeyliyagr fjo;ij sdofh sdo aodoD7#& weooha )0rg['3i'j.............................

Greetings reader of Tall Human Blog. We are Ant People. Tall Human go on journey. We mean Tall Human no harm. Just many ant experiments. Hope Tall Human like taste of Borax.....NHE NHE NHE *evil ant laughter*