I’ll Take It
Published On: October 24, 2013

I’m not the craigslist type.  The lack of apostrophe bugs the ever-living crap out of me.  More importantly, I am working hard to pare down what I own (someday I will have a tiny house), and shopping for new things doesn’t quite fit with that plan.  So it was rather out of character when I found myself there early this month.  I’d seen some mention of someone finding something nifty on there and wondered it it ever really happened.  I headed over, and what did I see, shining out from among the slag heap of 70s particleboard atrocities, but a set of barrister bookcases.

Now true, they weren’t the ornate ones from the turn of the last century.  These look to be from about 1950, but they were solid, in good condition, and absolutely charming.  I was smitten.  I sent off an email asking if I could come see them.  Then, a few minutes later, I sent another email confessing just how badly I wanted them and offering to come with sparklers, cupcakes, stacks of cash, spare kittens, or whatever else might be needed to seal the deal.  Then, silence.  A full week of silence.  I thought a third email would move me to creepy stalker territory, so I sulked in quiet despair.

A week later, a friend asked if I’d gotten them.  I said no.  Wailed no more like it.  Then I went to look at the listing again (a lemon juice on the paper cut move if there ever was one) and saw they were still listed.  They hadn’t sold.  I sent a third email, and regaled The Boy with my tale of woe.  He said something about craigslist email being weird and sometimes getting eaten by his mail setup and then did some frowning and typing.  I hovered helpfully in the background doing the dance of rekindled hope (a stunning bit of ballet if I do say so myself).  A moment later he nodded, said the emails had been stuck, but now they were on their way.  I tried not to hop around like a deranged toad while waiting to see if I got an answer.

A moment later, the bong of incoming email sounded.  The bookcases were mine, could I get them tomorrow?  Now, ‘tomorrow’ happened to be the first day of the photo shoot.  Also known as the busiest workday of my whole year.  But yes, yes I could get them.  So, after wrapping up pictures, I headed out to capture my prize.  I dragged them home (wincing at every pothole, sure the glass would break on the way), spent two hours with the furniture polish and windex, and set them up.  I had to set them up that night because the next day was day two of the photo shoot, and we were having everyone over that night for a little celebration, so there couldn’t be half finished furniture sitting about. _DSC8405

I’m delighted.  Now, this isn’t quite done.  There’s actually a third tier of shelves.  The plan is to take that third level, put it on the bottom, and put our speakers in it.  Then we’ll need to find a shorter lamp for up top, and we’ll be all good.  But this was as far as I got Friday night, and I was too pleased not to share.  I fully expect to come back again and dork out in bookish glee (and possibly show some of the nifty stuff I found about the company that made them…because I’m really quite shameless about stuff like that) when we get it in its final configuration.

Anybody else find anything nifty on craigslist?  I think I have to stay off of it from now on, as I’ve clearly already won the prize and to go back for more would be greedy!

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