‘Creepers’ on Craigslist? No Way. Didn’t You Read the Disclaimer? ‘I Am Not a Creeper …’

While tiptoeing around the Patches on Craigslist – and tiptoe is the correct verb because there are big piles of nasty buried under innocuous sounding subject lines that are best avoided – it was unsettling to discover lingering doubt over whether there are creepers lurking on the site.

Doh!

As the object of some unknown Craigslist poster’s desire, this woman cleared it up nicely:

“Everyone,” she writes (and can’t you just hear the exasperated tone?), “... it’s creepy that someone who comes into my work posted about me on Craigslist and used my name! Like I want a bunch of weirdos stopping to see who this girl is!! … This world is full of crazies and I would never respond to a post about me!”

Got it?

Nope. Guys apparently feel the need to post disclaimers while they’re trolling Craigslist hoping to score. A guy in Johnston who was leering at a woman in the Green Days beer tent says he’s not a creeper – just a normal guy looking to hook up.

And in Waukee, this guy falls all over himself reassuring the woman at Red Box that he’s a prince among Craigslist posters.

“First let me get this out of the way. I'm not a creeper or weirdo. Just a normal educated and classy western suburb guy. Whew, now that's out of the way … “

Classy. Right.

Patch just had a flashback to the ‘70s – no, not that kind – and Richard Nixon saying, “I am not a crook.”

Elsewhere around the Patches, they’re unabashed creepers and weirdos. They don’t say it outright, but it’s assumed.

“Is there a Julie out there?” asks this guy in West Des Moines. And then there’s the guy who wants to sit down and have a chat with the woman wearing the fedora or, if she’s not into that, she can have his flesh to do with as she wishes. Moving along, the pizza wasn’t all that was hot.

In an Ankeny grocery store, their eyes met over the checkout counter. Or something like that.

Finally , a normal post in Urbandale. Happy belated Father’s Day, Elizabeth.

Classy. For real.

Angels Flying Too Low Around the Patches

Could we talk about this and lame, tiresome stuff like it, please?

If they’re real angels, wouldn’t they fix those two big things in our lives, presumably without warning and without expecting some big to-do about it on Craigslist?

We’re supposed to “drop everything and share it.” Really? What if we don’t, huh? What about that? Are the angels going to swoop in like enormous prehistoric winged lizards. pluck us out of our lives and drop us into some snake-infested pit in the bowels of hell because we didn’t share it, forward it or otherwise junk up someone’s digital life?

That’s ridiculous.

But not as ridiculous as turning angels into a superstition.

Don’t you get tired of people who claim that every good thing that ever happened is a miracle and every nice person an angel? Doesn’t that cheapen both?

Thank you. Patch rant over. Don’t share it. It’ll be OK.

Honky-Tonkin’ Around the Patches

They were just two crazy kids in love. Ouch. Cowgirl up. Could it be that her cowboy is Pinky? Probably not. Wild horses couldn’t drag him away.

Now, just to stay with the theme, imagine these next people in 10-gallon hats, cowboy boots and spurs, and ginormous silver belt buckles they had to wrestle a sharp-horned steer for the privilege of wearing with their too-blue and too-tight Wranglers:

This is kind of interesting. This is kind of over the top. This sounds kind of dangerous. And this seems kind of sick and wrong in a please-call-Servicemaster-to-clean-the-theater kind of way.

The spurs added something to the imagery, didn’t they? Especially that last bit.

Alphabet Soup Around the Patches

His name starts with S. No, not that, but he is “a tall lanky bastard.” And her name starts with C. No, not that. Never that. She’s beautiful, smart, funny and deserves better. So, of course, he proposes an affair on the down low.

They just don’t write love stories like they used to.

Angst Around the Patches

Her “one that go away”? Oh, gag. What is he, a fish? Ha! That’s telling her.

Could this person be more vague?

And finally, this week’s installment of – chant along with Patch:

“Stop yer wallowing in it.”