Where does the good go?

Recently I have benefited from the rotten side of humanity. I'm glad I did, but there's a part of me that feels guilty about it. Allow me to explain.

Sunday I was watching football with a friend of mine. During the game we started joking around about how I could get a lot more action if I put my picture up on CraigsList.

Friend: I know that people put personal ads on there, but can they upload pictures as well?

Me: I think so. Here, let's see.

Then I grabbed my laptop and took a look around. Sure enough there were plenty of people with their pictures up. Scary people for the most part. (Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm pretty sure that I'd be the cream of the crop of the CraigsList personal ads. Which is exactly why I could never put an ad out.)

After we'd had our fill of looking around at scary women (trust me, it didn't take long), I told my friend that I really ought to look around for furniture since I've been wanting to replace bed and love seat. You see, I have a confession to make. Ever since my ex-wife and I separated in 2001, I've slept on a twin bed. Sure, you might say that no adult should sleep on a twin bed, but it was free, and I've been able to manage just fine with it, but still, I figure it's way past time to upgrade. So, I looked through some of the Craigslist ads for furniture. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to see anything I liked, but the first ad I clicked on had a whole bunch of stuff that the person was trying to get rid of. There were no pictures posted with the ad, but most of the furniture listed was from Ikea, so I was able to use a Google image search to see what it looked like. Some of it looked pretty nice, so I decided I'd call and inquire (with a little prodding from my friend).

A nice sounding British woman answered the phone and told me I could come right out to have a look. I told her I couldn't make it right away (after all, I still had a football game to finish), but that I could be there in a couple of hours. I took down her address and drove across town, stopping at an ATM along the way to take out enough cash to buy the bed (which was listed at $250 for the bed frame, a queen sized pillow top mattress and box spring), and possibly one of the other items she had listed (she had dressers, a set of bedside cabinets, book shelves and two love seats). (Do I use enough parenthetical statements when I write? I don't think so. I'll have to make a conscious effort to use more.)

When I got to her apartment, she took me upstairs to show me the bed. (Before I left, my friend joked that if she was hot I should tell her that I needed to really test the mattress out before deciding to buy, but alas she was not, so no porno type situations broke out.) I liked the bed, and then told her I'd possibly be interested in the dresser. She told me that if I bought the one dresser, she'd throw the second one in for free, because it had a broken drawer that she didn't have time to try and fix. I also saw the bedside cabinets, and liked them, but couldn't decide which I'd rather buy with the little bit of extra cash that I had on hand. I also couldn't remember what her asking price was, and here's where the rotten side of humanity comes into play.

As I mentioned earlier, the woman was British, meaning that she is not a U.S. citizen. She was married, and they had two children together, but they got divorced about three years ago. She's been able to live in the country since then, but her ex had maliciously done something to block her green card application so she couldn't work. She's been living on his alimony and child support payments since then. According to her, she could count the number of times this guy has seen his two kids (who were adorable, by the way: Eleven and ten years old) over the past three years on two hands. He hasn't even bothered to see them on holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, or birthdays. The reason this comes into play is that he quit paying alimony and child support so she's being evicted from her apartment. Unfortunately for her and her kids, the fact that she never got a green card came into play, and she's basically being deported, having to leave the country by the end of January.

Unfortunately for her. Fortunately for me. When I told her that I was possibly interested in the dresser and bedside cabinets, she said she'd sell me all of it for $250, and offered to throw in two lamps. Since I'd planned on spending that much on just the bed, I jumped on the offer. Then decided I'd take a look at the bookshelf as well. I offered her $320 (all the cash I had in my wallet) to let me take everything I'd been interested in. She accepted. Most likely because she was desperate for money, and worried about having to throw the stuff away if she didn't sell it. So, to recap, I bought a new bed, box spring, mattress, two dressers, two bedside cabinets, two lamps and a bookshelf for less than the price of a new queen sized bed, all because some dirt bag was successful in getting his kids and ex-wife shipped off to another continent. Granted, it's all Ikea, which is synonymous with cheap, but I feel as though I've upgraded significantly. Now if I can just figure out where to put everything.