Craigslist Ads We Didn't Publish

So we’re looking to move very shortly here, and despite the fact that leaving our office may drain us of the bitter fuel that keeps us going, as well as the time that we have in a typical work day to write for this blog (also money), it’s time to move on. In the course of our quest for relocation, we’ve been bumming around Craigslist looking for places to rent and potential third roommates to join this sainted pair. Since we assume you’re familiar with the internet, you know what a fucking mess of a situation the “housing wanted” section of that site can be. Craigslist is great, but it also the worst.

While Anya is mostly bothered by the sheer volume of “single mother with 4 year old needs help” posts (not because she is worried about them, but because she doesn’t want to live in the same apartment complex in which they end up), Paul is mostly terrified by the sheer volume of “WARNING- JEANINE ROSS IS A MOLESTER- DO NOT TRUST” type posts. Deciding against responding to anyone that has posted thus far, we’ve decided to write up our own ad and sift through the thousands of responses we’re sure to get by publishing our age and gender.

As two of the most judgmental people on earth, we’re pretty sure we can at least eliminate the weirdos. Honestly, we’re like those forensic analysts who parse through the letters that serial killers write to the police in order to diagnose what kind of fucked up they probably are and create a profile based solely on their word choice and sentence structure. So now all that’s left is writing up on our ad to publish, and wait for the replies to come flowing in. Here are the drafts that didn’t quite make that cut:

- $500-900 Two roommates seeking third

You’re third in line for everything in this house.

Platonic life partners seeking a roommate solely to cut down on the cost of living in this infernal swamp of a city. We expect to have overnight guests, wine and game nights, occasionally loud sex, and fun. Please do not expect to be included in any of these activities.

Us: twenty-somethings, incredibly attractive, look uncannily like siblings but are not. Hate people, sweating, cockroach infestations, and being robbed. Love puppies, air conditioning, cleanliness, and a roommate that will put their goddamn dishes in the goddamn dishwasher.

You: Will mind your own business, contribute to a third of living expenses, and confine your belongings (minus furniture that we can dominate) to your room. We’re only allowing you to bask in our glory because we want the extra space of a 3 bedroom apartment for the ferrets that will be moving in. You will respect their space and acquiesce to all of their strange and various whims. Not negotiable. No smoking, no loud noises, no guests, and no back talk. Must love dogs.

- Join us in (near) the tub? (not for sex)

Paul wishes he could pull off scruffy that well and Anya wishes her sock buns looked that effortless.

We’re a pair of young (under 35) and engaging (late-night cross stitching, binge baking, YouTube karaoke) professionals (hopefully soon-to-be) seeking a third to join (fund) our New City explorations. We’re looking for a three-bedroom, multi-level townhouse to hold us and our pets, hobbies (kombucha tea brewing, fad exercise equipment, Harry Potter reenactment), and boxes of hoarded ephemera.

We do not currently having a large or steady income, but hopefully we can work out some kind of arrangement (no sex) where we help out around the house to cover our rent. We take a lot of baths together and while we don’t actually want you to join us in the tub, we might let you refill our Death by Chocolate ice cream bowls (fridge should ALWAYS be stocked with Death by Chocolate ice cream). We may occasionally ask you to hold bags, camera, bags, or court for us. Reading our minds (from distances up to the grocery and video stores) is a must. Knowing a lot of hiring managers is a plus.

Please send fully-clothed picture with response. We look forward to embarking on this fun-filled New City adventure (involving absolutely no sex) with you.

- Make our dreams come true!

We’re a dynamic and spunky pair of young soon-to-be professionals. Do not currently have career prospects in New City, but need to move out of Hometown before we kill ourselves Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina style. Luckily, we have amassed a dragon’s hoard of gold between the two of us, and, despite our parents’ advice, are ready to sign a lease and spend it in search of a better life. Yay!

This is more or less exactly what we look like, minus the poodle.

Please be a young professional that either has a job or also has a shit load in your savings account. No nudists (sorry!), no old people in mid-life crisis mode, no children, no drug or alcohol problems, and most importantly, no bros or Republicans of any kind.

Preferably you are someone we would consider inviting to wine and Settlers of Catan night even if you didn’t live with us. If you are against wine or games, forget it. If you do not recognize the picture in this ad, also forget it.

-Two bloggers with no source of income seeking sexless financial arrangement

Are you in the market for a dog walker/house sitter/court jester? Do you dream of a matched pair of dark-haired light-eyed sex kittens to live in your house for free, utilities included? Then we are just what you’re looking for!

Our ideal household.

Anya and Paul are two snarky young people with limited financial means and a blog that gets an average of fifty hits a day, and we have the Google Analytics to prove it. We are willing to live at your house, rent free, and provide all pet care (no birds or snakes) that is needed. We can also water plants, do light vacuuming on an irregular basis, and make sure that all the hair goes down the drain while we shower. As of now, we shower separately.

Paul will make sure the bathtub stays clean by regularly taking four to six hour baths. Anya will make sure your mind stays sharp by sassing you and challenging every rule you can come up with. We will probably have sex, but not with you or with each other, and you can’t watch. We will provide entertainment as needed, in the form of lively debates on topics such as Game of Thrones theories and the virtues of cat ownership/guardianship. You may request a debate on any topic.

Prefer furnished, a/c is a must, high speed internet because duh, it’s 2013.

What is Mind Meld?

Not quite like that.

Any blog needs an introduction, right? Like we should probably pretend to give you some information about ourselves, so that you’ll be invested in our lives. Or we could describe which niche we fit into, so you feel comfortable knowing that you’ll be getting lots of confirmation bias if you stay tuned, like Mormon-mommy-blogger-who-homeschools-and-never-feeds-her-precious-
spawn-processed-foods or frazzled-but-adorable-recently-married-and baby-hungry-hair-stylist or self-indulgent-undergrad-studying-abroad. Sorry, nope.

We’re going to describe YOU first, because we’re less the type of people who will be what you’re looking for, and more the type of people who will make you realize WE were what YOU were looking for all along but didn’t know it. Clever, right?

You probably don’t mind excessive profanity. You’re probably about as gainfully employed as we are (minimally). You’re intrigued by anecdotal history. You recognize that one cannot be both a dog person and a cat person. You aren’t going to lose your shit if (let’s be honest, when) we use the word “slut”. Hopefully your temper isn’t at short as Anya’s (it’s my cross to bear). Hopefully you’re a fan of ridiculously long, convoluted, and freakishly accurate analogies, as Paul is awfully fond of them. Luckily you don’t mind our widespread use of parentheses. Perhaps you’ll say “my, they have style!”. Perhaps you’ve been searching for a pair of people that are conversant on both the Sound of Music and Walking Dead, The Real Housewives and Game of Thrones, whose tastes run the gamut from the Kardashians to the Kareninas. Here we are! Here you are! If you’re none of those things, but you like pictures of corgis and witticisms, we can try that too.

Welcome.

You may call us Anya and Paul.  We are but two contrary travelers, sharing the same vessel through this winding journey we call life. (Sorry our first analogy is so heavy handed. We promise they’ll get much weirder and more difficult to follow) We’re also going to acknowledge that there are occasionally some potentially alarming holes in these analogies, but good luck trying to convince Paul of them.  Just keep playing along with us, it will probably be worth it in the end.

ANYWAY, Let’s say this vessel is a train. So, we’re all on this life train (we, meaning man/womankind). Ok, but maybe not all of us are on a train.

Some people are probably in planes, nevermind the fact that the service, food, company, and overall experience are pretty much guaranteed to be complete shit, they’re fast and that’s important, right? Those people are going places. There are probably others on cruise ships, enjoying the mediocre entertainment and canned food as they drift across the sea. These people are going to places that are made to look exactly like the place they just left, if a few degrees warmer. Same language, same food, whiter sand. But they like to say they have been places.  Then we have the walkers and runners and bikers, all great, active, alternative transportation methods, but not exactly feasible for long-distance trekking. These people are going nowhere fast. Don’t even get us started on horse people. Most are in automobiles, not caring that they’re trapped in rush-hour traffic, because they are in the drivers’ seats, wheel in hand, and are completely in control of their own lives. They have got it. Yes, we warned you were fucking judgmental. (Didn’t we? We are.)

Anyway, we’re on a train.  Trains belong to another era, but they certainly have not outlived their usefulness.  They’re powerful machines with a clear destination, while maintaining the option to get off at different stops along the way.  It might not be the quickest means of travel, but it’s efficient, romantic, and always carries the (remote) possibility of a murder mystery.  On this train, everyone has their own cabin.  Maybe you wander out to the dining car for a light dinner with a few other train travelers, maybe even the same group of travelers, but you must eventually return to your own cabin.  Alone.

The approximate level of glamour and intrigue of the train.

So, there we are, on this train.  And one day we found ourselves at the same table, enjoying lemon squares and tea (not an analogy, we fucking love lemon squares).  Our union started out with the basics: hypothesizing every minor plot point of Star Wars: Episode III (ah, for the days before Hayden Christensen was hired to overact our dreams into the ground), sobbing over the end of The Amber Spyglass, and acting out our own darkly comic versions of Harry Potter.  We would go on to spend many an afternoon turned evening singing praises of the finest Crawley sister (Lady Mary, obviously) and rolling our eyes at the most self-indulgent and delusional Kardashian (Try as they may, nobody can touch Kiki, did you see that Dragon Boat Race? Classic.).  One night, after scathingly mocking drinkers of kombucha tea (while making plans to try/brew our own), we returned to the same cabin.  We couldn’t tell you how it happened exactly, but we both made comfortable nests in this new joint space. It was a Mind Meld if there’s ever been one.

So, dear reader, here we are. Two bodies, sharing the same cabin on this train.  The cabin here is of course the mind, which we again didn’t need to tell you, but this post is supposed to be a missions statement (a convoluted, multi-paragraph mission statement) and you’re supposed to spell things out in those, right?  Regardless, we are essentially one unit carrying two different sets of experiences.  Do we occasionally differ on opinions?  Of course. One of us hates Jennifer Aniston, the other hates Jennifer Lawrence. Sometimes we’re purposely difficult to each other because we both love the Secret Garden and fail to see “contrary” as a character flaw. But at the end of the day, more often than not when Paul starts asking “But isn’t-” and Anya says “Vicky, Christina, Barcelona”, she’s answering the question she didn’t even let him finish.

We are completely in unison on all important topics, most of which stems from our eternal philosophy that people are completely terrible. Sorry, Anne Frank, we tried. We are of the opinion that if you give a mouse the benefit of the doubt, you’ll sorely regret it (unlike giving a moose a muffin). Yet we’re still somehow holding out that someday, someone will not be a disappointment (ha, right?). Despite this, or perhaps because of this, we are hilarious, poignant, and extremely judgmental, which is great for you, dear reader, because that means plenty-o-entertainment for you.  For you, we’re going to take a page out of Carrie Fisher’s book and use her "if my life wasn't funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable,” motto.  Please don’t mistake this for genuine cheer; we still have far too many incidents involving crying over Folger’s commercials and Dance Moms season finales to be real people. Isn’t it scary that there are two of us?

“Help me, Liz Lemon, you’re my only hope!”

 [Carrie Fisher Photo Credit: Cylla von Tiedemann]