Craigslist Chronicles
It was a Tuesday evening in late winter, and my husband, Robert, and I were driving down a dark, Baltimore County road in hot pursuit. “It’s right here,” said Robert, turning into a steep driveway that led to a large estate perched at the top of a hill. We parked, rang the doorbell and were soon greeted by a middle-aged man wearing a jacket, hat and scarf, proper attire for the house, which I immediately realized was unheated. He welcomed us into the front hall, which was set up like an office, with a large, cluttered desk, computer, lamp and telephone. To our left was a large living room that was clearly once formal, but now was shabby. Zebra, deer and elephant heads and skins hung on the walls.
After brief introductions, our host explained that the item we had come to see was on the home’s upper level. He led us toward a flight of stairs with an intricately carved banister. More taxidermic displays lined the walls of the stairwell, souvenirs from long-ago trips to Alaska and Africa, the man told us. My husband and I feigned interest, although I, for one, was repulsed. We followed the man up two flights into a dark room and suddenly I got frightened. We could be murdered right here, and no one would be the wiser. What of our young children waiting at home? Who would care for them when we were gone? I felt like a character in a non-comedic version of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” And we were doing all this for a used futon couch?
As it turned out, the man with the futon was a harmless eccentric— not the Craigslist Killer, thankfully. But, since his futon wasn’t in great condition we passed on it and I continued shopping. I visited a futon store and searched for deals on the Web. But purchasing a new futon was low on my husband’s priority list. He’d designed our basement (with contractors found exclusively on Craigslist), and furnished it with a huge leather sectional with reclining seats bought at a bargain price (from you guessed it, Craigslist). He wasn’t so interested in using it as a guest room, especially for my out-of-town relatives. If we had to buy a bed for my visiting parents (and by the way, what’s wrong with a hotel?) he felt at least it should be cheap.
Eventually, my search took me back to Craigslist, the online classified site that began as a local events listing in San Francisco in 1995, and now offers everything from jobs to real estate to goods and services to activities (and relationships). According to the company’s Web site, Craigslist.org receives more than 20 billion page views per month. New items are listed daily, so serious shoppers— like my husband and I— scan the offerings regularly.
During one of my daily checks, I discovered that “Susan” in Park Heights was selling a rarely used futon as part of a huge moving sale. I persuaded Robert to drive to her apartment one evening in early spring. When we entered the lobby we noticed signs announcing a moving sale in “Shoshana’s” apartment. Strange, we thought: two women in the same building holding moving sales at the same time. But when we arrived at the door, we discovered that Susan and Shoshana were one and the same. As the young woman explained, Shoshana was the name she’d adopted after her conversion to Orthodox Judaism.
Shoshana and her young husband, an Israeli, were making aliyah (moving to Israel), and she had to sell all of her furniture as soon as possible. While our husbands carried the futon (just what we were looking for!) down to our car, she told me her story. “I’ve always been fascinated with Judaism,” she said. “Seven years ago, I visited Israel and decided to convert. My father is Jewish, but I was brought up Catholic— my mother’s religion. I didn’t know anything about being Jewish when I was growing up.”
Shoshana went on to say that her parents didn’t approve of her choice to become an observant Jew or her plan to move to Israel. “I’m hoping that once we have children, they will come around,” she added, smiling mournfully. In the car going home, I thought about the oddness of it all. I went to buy a futon, and was invited into Shoshana’s life and heart.
Not all our experiences on Craigslist have been that chummy. While trying to sell a drum set (that he had bought months earlier on Craigslist), my husband received several e-mails from people wanting to purchase the set, sight unseen, for the asking price. The potential buyers all proposed convoluted payment plans whereby a representative would pick up the drums and provide payment in the form of a money order or certified check. Luckily, my husband had read about such scams on the Craigslist Web site and steered clear.
In about two years of buying and selling on the site, my favorite experience involved the sale of our daughter’s 3-year-old Schwinn bicycle. Immediately after posting it, my husband got a call from a gentleman in West Baltimore, who explained he was at work, but would try to leave his workplace during his lunch hour. The perspective buyer appeared promptly— notable in and of itself, since respondents to Craigslist ads are frequently unreliable— and agreed to purchase the bicycle on the spot.
“All of the children in my neighborhood have bicycles and they are always outside riding around,” he explained. “But there’s one little girl who doesn’t own a bike. She’s always sitting there watching the other kids. This bike’s going to be for her.”
Just as I occasionally think about Shoshana, and hope she’s doing well in Israel, I think about that little girl circling her block on my daughter’s baby blue Schwinn.
