6/2

This ranks up there with one of the best ways I've ever come up with to entertain myself after I've put a screaming, whining, cranky, teething baby in bed:

1) Get inspired after a new friend you met for coffee tells you that she met her partner through craigslist.

2) Remember that the last time you looked at craigslist, all you saw were naked pictures of 18 year-old virgins, some ads to "WORK FR*M H@ME!%*!" and a set of IKEA bedroom furniture for sale.

3) Decide to experiment and post a brief personal about myself, stating that, contrary to other posters in the personals section, I'm not looking for a sex friend, a threesome, or an alternative relationship with any form of flora or fauna. I did not post a picture and stated that I would not supply a picture of myself no matter how much begging was involved or disclosure of personal contact information on their end.

4) Receive over 50 replies in under an hour.

5) Laugh so much that I can't go to sleep when it hits the magic hour of 10pm. Continue laughing until 11:30pm or so when I pass out from a weird sinus, throat thing that makes me sound like I've swallowed a barritone opera singer.

6) Wake up the next morning and check my e-mail. Find even more responses, including a brilliant one that simply says: "Have you found anyone, yet? I'm free"

7) Have so many responses that craigslist removes my post because it was flagged as Spam due to the amount of hits it was getting (I couldn't make this up if I tried).

8) Decide to only e-mail back a small number of the incredibly sweet responses, like the one that says, "I wish you well on your journey, even if I won't be the one to accompany you." See - I told you that I couldn't make it up if I tried.

9) Post about my experience on my blog and encourage all of my single friends to try it out, just once, to see what happens.

10) Laugh some more and go out to dinner with your parents, who are, after all, much safer, at least in theory.