Taunting Craigslist Missed Connections

I am no stranger to Craigslist. I have successfully negotiated the purchase of electronic equipment — not stolen — and did not die in the process. I have also found two roommates in this manner and neither killed me in my sleep (though one roommate's cousin did, I believe, want to partake in some late-night funny business with my handsome sleeping cherubic self).

Craigslist is also where I go to not find work. The job boards are criminally depressing, time-and-self-worth suckholes that bog me down in mire and shame and depression. Eyes glaze over, sexual appetite wilts, brain liquefies, body becoming a gelatinous goo of worthlessness, I am a Madam Toussaud's wax figure of myself under a McDonald's heatlamp, and if only I had a little more fry-o-lator experience, I could get that job at McDonald's.

There is one place on Craigslist, however, that does not disappoint: Missed Connections. Eyes search for daddy issues and latent low self-esteem with pinpoint accuracy, sexual appetite becomes voracious (easy prey, I'm perverted, etc.), brain is sharp, body feels muscular as everyone else seems so weak, I am AWESOME. (By comparison.) I could be president! And what a tyrant I would be!

I never respond to these posts, primarily because the sad/shy/chubby girl in question is never talking about me. And then I cry. Also, because, would you respond? Do you really want to meet up with somebody who was too scared/lame to talk to you the first time around, but now armed with their stairway wit they go on to Missed Connections to reach you? And, on top of that, not only are YOU so lame that you're reading Missed Connections, but you stumble across one and have so little in the way of social obligations that you'll respond, maybe even go on a date based on an email sent to an anonymous reply-to e-mail address?

Who cares. Check out what I found the other day:

In case you are blind and reading this on your braille computer (or it's reading it for you, I guess is probably more likely) here is the text:

when i saw you behind the mcdonalds counter on broadway..... my heart dipped into what seemed like a melting sundae. your hair color reminded me of the hot fudge as i was letting the spoon graze my sun soaked lips. everytime i see a mcdonalds commercial, i envision me sitting on your face as you yell im loving it. i wanna say it was the hot weather that made me so wet but then id be lying. as i watched you stack the cups into size order, i pictured you licking the sweat from the pores of my body. i hope you don't have your sexual education certificate because i'm about to certify the shit out of you. 

For the first time ever, I felt compelled to respond. No, I HAD to respond. First of all, who was this hussie not only swimming in my infinite pool of personal sadness (that helps me cope with the "success" of working about 8 days a month), but also peeing in it, degrading the true missed connections with the blatant mockery? Second of all, this is pretty funny, and one good turn deserves another. So I signed in to Gmail with my Tuesdays With Maury e-mail address and banged out the following letter from my phone, since my computer has been down for days: *Ahem*

I knew it was going to be a scorcher today, that's why I set my company issued visor at a lusty tilt. You've got Golden Arches, girl, and I ain't talkin' bout dat ass, though it's a stunna: Naw, I'm a foot man. And even though your tight tourist figure came struttin' up to the counter wearing some crusty Rainbow flip flops, I knew dem feet was the apple pie to my value meal. You know how they invented that spoon that also makes the McFlurry? The same magic put me on this earth to caress those toes of yours. I'm gonna dip em in all the sauces, even mixtures you haven't even fathomed. You're the one who's gonna get an education.

You saw me stack those cups, huh? You see how gentle I was with the supersize? Yeah, you gotta finesse the big ones in.

Also, just looked at the e-mail to get the text of the letter. Realized that I must have registered that "anonymous" Maury account under my real name.

I stand by my words.

Sadly, however, it is I that missed the connection. I haven't heard back from my lusty wench of both McDonald's and cyberspace. Here I thought I was gonna have this like Sleepless in Seattle (or You've Got Mail? I didn't see either) Tom Hanks–Meg Ryan fake internet romance based on the most important factors in any relationship: Humor, Sarcasm, Sex and Junk Food.

And I still kinda need a job.

Does A.C. Slater Sit Backwards On The Toilet?

spare a square, Mr. B?

Test results are inconclusive. But Mario Lopez has aerobics instructor levels of spandex photos floating around on the internets, just waitin' to be downloaded by some retro, '80s-loving pervert/blogger with perpetual boredom/no social skills/insomnia/indigestion. I hate myself.

just another reason for self-loathing

The McDonald's in my neighborhood is open 24 hours on Friday and Saturday nights, which means two things: One, I have an even unhealthier option for late-night drunk snacks than going to the bodega for a bag of kettle chips, a beef patty (pictured above, except sliced open and stuffed with pepperjack cheese before being microwaved) and a large VitaCoco; and two, they must have some sort of policy in that vagrants are allowed to loiter overnight. Both of these scenarios — eating late-night QPCs and photographing hobos — are near and dear to my heart, but one is going to cause my heart to explode from joy, the other explode from cholesterol...

Behold number three, "Dream Team", in my ongoing series of Homeless People Trading Cards (and another), in which I capture the unsheltered citizens in my neighborhood in their natural environment, like a National Geographic special created by a mental patient with photoshop.

this was the happiest meal i've had in weeks...

For some reason, looking at this photo has me thinking about that song "Holidae Inn" by Chingy. (whatever happened to him? Is he working the front desk night shift at a Cleveland area Radisson?) I got to wondering just what his street cred was really like. What if Chingy was homeless when he wrote that song and it was sad and depressing, talking about trying to bathe at the McDonald's or like a (hot) Carl's Jr. or something on Friday and Saturday nights and dreaming of a hotel room, but then Snoop and Bishop Don "Magic" Juan wandered in for a McFlurry and Chingy recognized Snoop and spit a few rhymes for him, Bishop Don trying to preach to him about turning his life around but Snoop — ever the savvy businessman — knew that even though the current version was depressing and totally unmarketable, especially since homeless Chingy was using a window washer's squirt bottle as a "mic", he saw some real talent in that kid, thinking almost out loud "If this shizzle wasn't about some homeless nizzle, it'd be off the hizzle" (or something like that, I think his mouth was full of Butterfinger McFlurry at the time). I scoured the internet and found the "Lost Lyrics" to the original song, when his name was Squeegie, due to his famously streak-free skills washing car windows on Sunset.

But out of those humble beginnings, this star was born, so we must appreciate his unfortunate roots and poor penmanship/grammar/spelling and love Chingy for the man who produced this:

I need to go to bed, but before I do, single solitary reader-prisoner, I will announce that I am going straight up Nick Denton and expanding my publishing empire to two horrible blogs, the second of which I am hoping to launch maybe tomorrow but realistically more like later this week. It is called "Tuesdays With Maury", and the idea is to take the choicest screenshots from the two daily episodes of the Maury Povich Show and post them on a tumblr blog, and maybe even try to teach a life lesson or two in the process like Mitch Albom does in that book, allegedly. I have not, nor do I ever envision myself reading it. Here's another little teaser, a PR shot from the play that was made from the made-for-TV movie that was made from the book. Enjoy, or whathaveyooz.

there's so much maury can teach me if i just plug my nose and keep an open mind about the elderly