The Great Classified Ad Cloud

By Nelson Pellew

So, this is the future: browsing online classifieds. The funny thing about browsing through online classified ads, particularly if you omit the personal ads, is the sheer selection of what people, presumably as sane and lucid as you and me, will offer up for trade, ten pence, or barter. Indeed, you will find a host of dreadful items you would be better off buying brand new at your local Dollar Store -- no thank you, I don't think I will be opting for your used toilet bowl scrubber.

The city, as Solon once quipped in my imagination, is the center of life. Perhaps, then, what defines the parameters of what people will solicit for is the city in which they are soliciting. I imagine you would find a more practical range of actually useful items in the online edition of the Boise Gazette or some such Midwestern publication. It seems perfectly reasonable that you would and could find advertisements for used tractors or fattened livestock -- you know, things of practical use.

But what happens in the major cities of America? Well, what you tend to find in a city like Los Angeles, on the other hand, would make a shy, bald Buddhist reflect and ponder mass murder. Or at least break out in a wild guffaw. I submit while the listing for puppies for sale seems relatively reasonable, there is no mention of whether or not they are live puppies, much less stuffed or crafted from Crisco.

Listen carefully and you just might hear a curious kind of pinging going on between those who post classified ads and those of use who read them, even as jest. On a very metaphysical level, we are exchanging ideas, hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Moreover, we are sharing our likes, dislikes, political views, and moral guideposts. One cannot read "Kazak translator needed" and not be genuinely intrigued by the kind of person who needs this kind of service.

The swirling mass of thwarted consciousness that is the metropolitan classified ad cloud is an ebbing, flowing beast with a million eyes and half as many hopes. Yes, the spelling tends to be off and grammar and syntax are nothing more than desperate hopes, but there is a real reaching out occurring via the online classified. Gird your loins, pepper your expectations, and enjoy. - 30247

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