The best thing I have ever read on craigslist

I was looking for a couch on Craig's List but got side-tracked and started looking at everything. The interesting thing about looking at furniture on Craig's List is that you get these haphazard photos that allow you to see onto someone's life. So, I was engaging in this home-furnishing voyeurism when I saw this ad:

Laminate kitchen table, 4 legs included - $23

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Date: 2007-07-26, 8:42PM EDT


This is an adequate speckled laminate kitchen table. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not the kind of table that will make your life complete. Or maybe it is. We're not getting rid of it because we're moving or because we bought a new table. We simply stopped eating so we no longer have a need for it.

It's 3' x 4'- a surface area of 12 square feet. The table surface is 30.5" above the ground, supported by 4 legs, black, made of wood of unknown origin. At one time there was a leaf that could be inserted in the middle of the table to extend it to an indescribable length, but it can't currently be located. I think a dingo stole it.

The legs are easy to attach and remove via a revolutionary wing nut attachment mechanism. Even if you don't need a kitchen table, removing and reattaching the legs would make for hours of enjoyment. Oh - and it's been tested outside its intended kitchen environment. This fine specimen has been used as a desk and to hawk wares at a garage sale just this past spring.

The table is currently wasting the days and nights away in our garage. You can verify this in the picture below. A giant poster of Jules Winnfield (as played by Samuel L. Jackson) from the movie Pulp Fiction is watching over it. The poster's for sale too.

The Dirty Border, Chapter 12 by Melanie Lamaga

In which Pooh falls in with a bad crowd and learns about interspecies dating, the Aztec calendar and to never ever to drink tequila with Jesus-Fondling-His-Likeness

"Premeditated Mooning" by Jay Snodgrass

At the end of fifth grade, on the very last day,

I drew a smiley face on my butt in order to moon

Mrs. Stringer the math teacher, who had been

My homeroom teacher the year before.

She’d grabbed me by the head one day for my insolence

And left an orbit of half moon gouges

Around the top of my cranium, a crown of bad behavior.

I knew I had to do something to get her back

So when my friend Barry suggested I moon her I

Thought that was a great idea, but I couldn’t just

Moon her because where’s the originality, where’s the

Punishment, the return scold. No I had

To come up with a pretty good way to amplify it

If I wanted it to go down as one of the greats.

So that morning I snuck my mothers mirror and a tube

Of burgundy lipstick which I threw away

After applying through the magic of the Fovea which

Is that nerve in the back of your eye

That takes the upside down image your eye gets and

Turns it right side up for the brain to process

I drew two big dark, sad, sorrowful eyes and one long

Jagged mouth across the longitude of my

Ass crack. All that day I was heady with anticipation

Not only was it the last day of school,

But I was going to paste it right out of the park with

My painted little wiggler. I had nerves up

All right, and as I saw Mrs. Stringer standing in the doorway

Of her classroom, waiving to all the good

Little ones, the ones whose company I would forsake

In the wake of my revelation, if you will,

I knew my opportunity was at hand. I seized upon the reins

And let fall the buckle shouting to get her

Attention before I bowed to the opposite of her, waving it

Back and forth like a ship to ship signal.

A few hours after I got home, my father stormed into the

House and demanded to know what I had done.

The only thing at all about this story that keeps me in a

Straight face is the fact that a few years later Mrs. Stringer

went mad and was institutionalized. I could claim credit

for that, but on the whole, it just makes me feel bad.

Installment #2 of "Shutdown" by Jeff Crouch

This is part of an ongoing story. Click here to read the first installment.



John Largent was going to have a busy night, and he walked over to one of his favorite doctors and asked for a prescription to help him with his diet.

Dr. Johnson was the doctor John Largent would go to first, if only he could find him, but the doctor he found was Dr. Zemackis.

Dr. Zemackis was busy doing his job, trying to get water to his patients and reassure them about their well being. It was sure to be a stressful evening.

John Largent would have to wait to get his prescription; Dr. Zemackis had a no-nonsense look in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Dr. Johnson was still in his office trying to figure out the best way to keep his secrets guarded.

A patient, dismissed earlier that afternoon, had begun to go door to door in her apartment building, quizzing people about their experiences at the hospital. Incredibly, she found that one out of three people she talked to had been to the hospital.

The information she got was alarming, not because people had much bad to say about the hospital, not overwhelmingly anyway, but because the information she got was altogether contradictory.

Susan James had just begun her adventure in the disconcerting.

Dr. Johnson knew better than to let the shutdown worry him. His favorite movies had always been about prison escape, and he had always had a neurotic fascination with such TV shows as Gilligan's Island and Hogan's Heroes.

A car in the parking lot burst into flames, and the flash against the window momentarily drew Dr. Johnson away from his paperwork.

Down the hall, Dr. Ward realized that his car had exploded. His trunk was full of oxygen tanks, and the blaze was miraculous. It immediately ignited the two cars next to his corvette.

Dr. Johnson signed the piece of paper he was looking at and put it in his case. The analysis made for the patient was, indeed, completely bogus, and he knew it. He had initiated another irrelevant treatment plan with suppressed glee, but he refrained from finalizing the case on the computer.

Dr. Zemackis had asked John Largent to collect water for the patients, and John Largent knew he had a clean water facility available in the hidden hospital, but he was as yet unwilling to expose the secret facility.

Instead, John Largent got on the phone to Becky Crown.

"Becky," he said, "the doctors are worried about provisions for the patients. The reporters are here or will be soon. I need you to start issuing requests for bottled water, food, blankets, and whatnot. Be sure to tell people where to bring them. Tell them Jim's Hardware has already donated $500 worth of inflatable mattresses."

Becky paused for a moment and said, "But that's only about six mattresses, John."

"Actually, it’s nine," said John.

Becky checked her messages and began to make herself ready for a long night at work.

Tim Irons, the IT Director, had managed to keep the computer system on line, but something seemed to him terribly wrong.

Dr. Ivory had approached Dr. Johnson twenty-five years ago about running a hospital where people were consistently misdiagnosed and treated for maladies they never had, and Dr. Johnson had been more than willing to cooperate.

In the inner circles of management, Dr. Ivory was known as the Recruiter, and her dedication to her work was nothing short of absolute.

During the shutdown, Dr. Ivory should have been in Cozumel enjoying a bonus package from a pharmaceutical company, but she had greater secrets to guard than Dr. Johnson.

Even before she had heard Dr. Johnson was a fan of Hogan's Heroes, Dr. Ivory made her presence known on the hospital's racquetball courts.

Shortly after Dr. Johnson began his work at the hospital, his first wife, Dr. June, had run off with her tennis instructor. He was never sure why, but then, he never really understood the workings of management.

"Wash In" by Jenny Tondera

"Big Mouth of the Missouri River Swallowed Anna Whole" by Rebecca Prashner

She had gone down to the bank to catch crawfish. The water was strangely clear that day. From the light of the clear grey sky, Anna could see all the objects that floated by. She saw a skeleton key in the current and pocketed it. Anna waded in further. Cold black mud anchored her toes to the bottom. On a day like this, she knew there were more things to find than crawfish.

Anna pocketed a lot: shiny and tarnished pennies, a shoelace, an old fishing hook, a locket. She was soon weighed down in the cold, clear water. It occurred to her that she was in the middle of the river now, with a strong current. It carried her on as she grabbed for more trinkets. She thought she saw a hippo, but those only belonged in the Nile. A grey sky casts illusions like that. Anna went rushing down the river like this. What she didn't know was that everything was turning to water in her pockets.

"empty bucket" by Rebecca Prashner

I've got a bucket

keep it out at night

I might

be thirsty

in the morning

by then

it's all

dried up

the nights

are too

hot

& fast

"Film " by Rebecca Prashner

There's nothing blank

On a page

Missing words

Beneath a window

With blue light