That will show ‘em.

What I’m looking for when I read housing ads

1) Information about the current residents and their partying and/or drug-consuming habits.

Look, I want some warning if I’m going to come home to the cops raiding my house or find an exceptionally drunk college freshman pawing through my closet. You need to be upfront about that shit.

Also, if you’re habitual gaybashers or spend a lot of time having your mom bail you out of jail, I’d like to know that as well.

2) General location of the house/apartment.

First of all: Seattle is a big place with many different neighborhoods. Living in certain neighborhoods can make your public transportation life living hell.

I know this because I spent years having to catch the bus at 6:30 AM to get to my 8:30 AM class even though my college was less than seven miles away from my house. In other words, I spent four hours on the bus or waiting for buses to spend three hours in class every day. Given my tendency to attract epic creepers and crazy women that like to spend forty-five minutes sharing with me the names they have for each individual dreadlock attached to their skull. I’ll never forget you, Testimony. You were my favorite.

It’s also awesome emailing about a listing only to find that someone decided it was relevant to post room openings for Hong Kong in the Seattle section. Yeah, you’re really reaching your target audience there.

3) Information about the living space.

When you said “room available” did you actually mean “You’ll be sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs”? Will I be sharing a room with a crack fiend or just a bathroom?

4) How much are utilities and other monthly expenses?

I love when the cheap rent sounds great and then you find out that they spend 250 dollars every month so they can have 1800 channels–many captionless in languages no one in the house actually speaks.

5) When is the room available? When does the lease end? Do you require a deposit and if so, how much?

You know. Minor details such as…how long before my ass needs to find another place to schlep all my shit to?

What’s actually in housing ads

1) Information about the “rad dumpsters nearby” for prime dumpster-diving opportunities.

What I find moderately disturbing is the sheer amount of Craigslist ads that actually list this.

2) Information about their plots of world domination politics.

From a recent Craigslist ad:

[L]ooking to start infoshop in basement and work with the community to find ways to topple oppressive systems.

Look. I like plotting to overthrow the oppressive power structures in my spare time as much as the next girl, but I just want a place to store my shit, cook, and sleep. I’m not looking for a revolution in Craigslist housing ads, okay. Particularly not when you’re only advertising a one-month sublet.

3) Endless paragraphs about their cats.

Information I want about your kitties:

A) Can I cuddle it?

B) Can it eat a tiny ice cream cone while wearing a tiny hat?

While she’s in labor, her husband is running about like his hair is on fire, completely flipping out.

And then goes and gets himself some leftover apple cobbler, surveying the debacle from the kitchen table.

All the while his wife is still dropping babies all over the g-ddamn place.

And then, after the whole ordeal is over, he has the nerve to complain that HE is tired.

So I killed him.

She continues, suggesting that if kids just get jobs at McDonald’s then they will receive free food on their break.

I pretty much hope that the 20% of children considered hungry in Missouri go and eat her.

Ms. Davis neglected to mention when her hunger strike will begin so she can get motivated to resolve the hunger issue in her state. She also avoided the question of how she manages to sleep at night.

Colbert is amazing, as per usual:

However, this does not mean you can throw a shopping basket at me when I tell you that the Transformers DVD that is on sale today (or, rather, Saturday when this happened) will not be on sale tomorrow, even if you put it on hold at guest services.

Yes, I’m serious. A “guest” threw a shopping basket at me because he was supposedly freaking out whilst trying to find provisions, but apparently had enough time to pick out a Transformers DVD set.

Everybody is freaking out because they think they’re going to lose power. Everybody is foraging for food. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

After I told him he wouldn’t get the sales price, he started going off and spewing a bunch of nonsensical bullshit:

1. “I’ve been living here for 30 years and…” (So what? My store hasn’t even been there for 35 years.)
2. “I’m ex-military and…” (Is that a threat?)
3. “I’ve been to three stores trying to get provisions and I don’t need this right now!” (Dude, you’re buying ping pong balls. How is that helping your search?)

Then he threw the basket at me. I backed up into the corner of my little register section and he began yelling at me to not freak out on him because he “doesn’t need this right now.”

I informed him he couldn’t attack me and that pissed him off. He said he wasn’t attacking me, to get better customer service skills, and that his generation had to deal with “it” and so I have to as well.

Excuse me? Your generation wasn’t typically known for throwing things at shop girls.

After I give him his receipt and run away, I get sort of freaked out. When someone’s in my face, I don’t really back down. I finally found my manager, who I normally hate, and she went over with security and kicked him out of the store.

This is where it got interesting: He started rambling about being ex-military and war and some incident in Germany and whatnot.

Here’s the thing: he was only about 35, max. There is no way he was ever in a war in Germany. And again I say, so what? What does Germany have to do with throwing a basket at me?

Bastard.

We were going to have a huge party today, but due to Snowpocalypse ’08, nobody from out of state can get here and most people in-state (including my family!) are stranded as well. Plus she (the birthday girl!) has a terribly unfortunate cold.

My aunt doesn’t want to deal with weather issues again so she wants to postpone until February.

Now, my great-grandma might be healthier than the rest of my family combined…but 100 is really effing old. You cannot postpone someone’s birthday party for two months–especially if they are into the triple digits.

My uncle is going off about how he’s never planning a birthday in December ever again. Because we get actual snow every five years or so? Seriously?

He’s even angry that she “decided” to get sick. Really? She decided to get sick? That’s a new one.

I love my uncle, but needless to say, he can be a bit of a self-centered bastard. My mom showed great restraint in not strangling him over the phone when she heard that.