Missed Connections: “I Saw You In The Douche Section…”

The Unfettered Letters Social Travesties Division (a.k.a “Love Is A Wet Dog” and Other Disasters Dept.)

ITEM!  “I Saw You In The Douche Section of CVS and Boy I Wish I Had Said Hello…” The Best of Missed Connections from the Craigslist Personals Section

In this feature, our regular correspondent Prestidigio The Magician (misanthrope extraordinaire and 5^th most famous child entertainer in Paramus, New Jersey; [all charges were dropped – Eds.]) takes a quick look at some of the brighter gems found in the "Missed Connections" section of the popular website Craigslist.  Prestidigio reports to Unfettered Letters from the offices of The Murphy’s Law Project, a sociological think-tank where he is an Internet Studies fellow for 2010, and where, with a generous grant from the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, he is conducting his “research” into all kinds of burgeoning web phenomenon (with some extra cash for his regular brand smokes and the occasional emergency bus ticket back from Atlantic City).

Prestidigio tells us:

"For those of you who don’t know, (and we’ll wait while you remove your head from your tuchus ), "Craigslist" is a kind of internet catch-all world-wide flea market and personals website, where people buy and trade stuff like baseball cards, lawn mowers, movie memorabilia and vagina - and also find blind dates, new friends, dudes who are willing to give you a 5:15p.m. anal quickie when you get off work, and connected guys who can knock off your wife at a competitive rate.  It can also be helpful if you are looking to murder a prostitute, but are a mild-mannered medical student by day.  However, by far the most entertaining section of Craigslist is called ‘Missed Connections,’ in the personals section, a virtual "inspiration point" in which lonely-hearts try to reach, via the magic of cyberspace – you’re not gonna believe this crap – some poor soul who they wish they had given their phone number or e-mail address to earlier that day, but let pass by like a schlep in the night because they didn’t have the guts to approach them at the time; i.e. that fellow with the L.L. Bean clad pectorals who caught their eye stepping off the bus, or the pleasant looking lass in the pantyhose department of Sears who seemed so extra friendly.  Sometimes some degenerate is trying to reconnect with a broad from his past after the restraining order expires.  Or he can’t get laid anywhere and doesn’t want to shell out the cash for a chair massage.  Stuff like that.

Reading this horse manure is like watching sloppy open heart surgery: all lovey-dovey, and mushy-like, and humanity at its most desperate and grotesque.  And yet there’s something indefinably poignant and charming about the whole affair…  Here’s the kicker: some of the worst poetry and literary emoting you ever done seen in your life.  Anne Sexton wrote better stuff than this after she was dead.  Compared to this drivel, fifteen year old high school girls who just broke up with their first boyfriend and want to get a Sylvia Plath tattoo and write a poem called “Take my heart, please!” in their dream journal are like friggin’ Wallace Stevens.  It’s a freaky scene, man!  Hello? is this thing on? Without further ado, here’s a few priceless items recently appearing in the Boston area postings:"

From the week of Feb 12:

Dear Midnight Shopper, 

I was the gentleman with a large growth on his face who was standing in back of you in line at Whole Foods this past Saturday night.  You might have thought the growth on my head was actually a second face, like a twin that partially lived and now clings to me like a parasitic organism, functioning as a kind of alter-ego or something (like in that Stephen King book), but that’s not the case.  Sometimes it looks like another guy, but it’s not, it’s just what my skin specialists at Mass General call a highly "textured" growth – meaning it has intricate patterns that can easily be mistaken for human features.  It is also "of high mobility," medical-speak for a growth/tumor that changes size and shape rapidly. 

Anyhoo…well, I didn’t have anything to do that Saturday night, like most Saturday nights, because it’s hard to get a date because I have a purple thing that looks like a second face growing on me…  But when I saw you, I said to myself (not to a second face) "self, that’s the gal for me.  What would Captain Kirk do in a situation like this?" So I unzippered my fanny pack to get my reading glasses in order to see your luminescent loveliness a little more clearly.  (Wait, is that "tuminescent?"  No I was right the first time.)  You were with this guy who looked kind of like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, but a little taller maybe, and probably a bit handsomer, and before he was dead.  But I could tell you weren’t really into him by the way you two were talking to each other – all curt and clipped sentences; in fact, I think you two were having an argument.  You are not long for each other: this is the conclusion I came to forewith.  And that’s why I’m taking this opportunity to write you now. 

I notice small details like that about the people in my immediate vicinity because I’m a writer.  Since the last operation, my career has really taken off.  I used to do articles for Cat Fancy ("Learning The Thin Line Between Discipline and Animal Neglect" was me) and Skin Oddittes Monthly ("I Of The Purpleness: One Man’s Story [a.k.a. Purpleness Be Not Proud"] was a biggie), so I am pretty versatile.  Now I write Harlequin-type "romances" for a really wonderful and whimsical publishing house called South Boston Love Tales Products Publishing and Shipping Co., Inc. (“for as low as $10.99; we bring enchantment to your door; free shipping with any bundled enchantment over 35 bucks”), and it’s been a lot better pay. The latest one I got published is called "Sticky Benches," – it’s about these two people, Jack and Sarah, who fall in love in Central Park – that’s that big park in New York City.  It’s really a touching tale, if I do say so myself, because Jack has a growth on his face and in spite of it Sarah learns to love him. 

But I digress, m’lady…I’ll cut to the chase: If you perchance to read this present posting, I think you shall definitely recognize it is you of whom I speak ("you probably think this post is about you…" like the Carly Simon song says, heh, heh)…. so….if you are willing to look past a large purplish growth, and in addition, in case we ever get married and sleep together in bed, if you are willing and able to once in a while shift said growth to the other side of my face so I can breathe again for awhile (it’s worse than sleep apnea, I tell you), then I would like to have the pleasure of your company at the following designated love spot.  What a romantic adventurous rendezvous it will be…!   I blush to tremor before your glazed cheeks, enchantress of my heart! 

Here’s the protocol: if you are ready for a life changing event, please meet me at 12:30 in the a.m. this coming Saturday in Public Alley #3 past the KFC on Stump Street in Dorchester.  If you get confused, that’s the KFC that was in the local news of late because that Hispanic gang – I think they’re called F-14 or M-16 or something – did a drive-by there where this guy got shot like 8 times or some jazz like that.  The dried blood on the pavement has all been washed away by this point. Don’t worry. The alley way should still be pretty well-lit at that hour (street lamps don’t go off until 3 a.m.) and you should be able to recognize me: I’m about 5’3,” I have brown hair in a bowl cut, and will be wearing my William Shatner For President t-shirt with a sports jacket with patches on the elbows.  And I have a large purplish growth on my face.

P.S.  Oh yeah, sometimes people like to know more about your past when they meet you to have conversation starters and stuff.  In high school I had several nicknames: "Quasimodo," "Dusty," "Rickets," "Stay the Hell Away From Me Guy," "Chance," - ’cause I like to take chances – and "Purple Dude" (I’m not crazy about that last one.)  I have every season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on DVD, and I had a dog named Grover who ran away (technically "rescued" by the ASPCA); also, my mother just got out of Rikers and will probably want to meet you by, like, our third date.  See you soon, my Juliet, my Esmerelda…amorous nights await!

P.P.S. The doctors also say that in the next 10 years, with technological advances, it’s a good possibility they may be able to remove the large, high-mobility purple growth from my head entirely. Although, just to be upfront, there is about a 70% chance with that type of operation I could lose all feeling in the left side of my body, or become psychotic, or both.

- See You Soon In The Moonlight,

Yours, Quasi

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