An Absolute Zoo Of Unmentionable Characters

Hey there, beautiful. It’s just you and me now. And isn’t this a picture of romance.

I looked around me at the recently finished midnight second helpings of spaghetti Bolognese and the dregs of a glass of red wine. Dramatic shadows surrounded us there, where we were huddled by the amorous glow of the microwave light.

Homemade—you know you are impressed. And I went light on the garlic.

I lifted my eyebrows suggestively.

It’s alright. No need to be insecure. You are a tad too flat in certain places and maybe a little too bulky in others, but no one is perfect and I am not judging you. I like you just the way you are.

I moved closer, slowly, and patiently—no need to be arrogant about it, but I knew I had it in the bag.

Now I just want to see how you taste.

I took a bite of the muffin and it was good. Not quite as good as expected, but that is the unfortunate nature of fantasies. The picture of the cranberry muffin with orange glaze on the webpage really did look perfectly enticing.

The phone buzzed from the counter to my left.

I’m sorry, I’m really ruining the moment, aren’t I? Should have put it on silent. I assure you there are currently no other baked goods in my life—at least not tonight. Now who on earth dares to disturb our intimacy?

I looked at the screen and let out a long, deep sigh as I set the muffin aside. It had begun.

Facebook Marketplace Is An Absolute Zoo Of Unmentionable Characters

So very unmentionably unsavory that I have every intention of mentioning them. I keep a generic Facebook account for the use of useful local tools. I can get the real local news via local groups, and I can partake in the more modern version of Craigslist—Facebook Marketplace—on that unfortunate platform. Generally I use this strange place for giving away something man-oriented that I don’t want to end up in a landfill, but no one on the Buy Nothing Group wants because my local Buy Nothing is almost all women.

And so I have this bike. It formerly belonged to my son, and since it has become scrap. A few important things are missing, but basically the vultures have not picked it clean. It needs a new home, where vultures can either rebuilt it or finish it off.

And so there we were, just me, a beautiful muffin, and a weird looking guy’s profile picture staring piercingly at me with the auto-response “Is this still available?”

He was the no-shirt type. You know, one of those guys that takes a headshot without a shirt on. You can’t actually see his chest, but you can see his bare shoulders. And it isn’t in a check me out, aren’t I sexy? kind of way, it is just in a I’m the inspiration for all those store signs that say “no shirt no shoes no service” kind of way. They often have uncomfortable bags under their eyes and squirrely looking hair and you can just visualize their hands shaking as they hit that auto-response button as though they are coming down off of something. And you think to yourself: Gosh this looks like a mugshot. But surely no one would make their Facebook profile a mugshot…right?

I’m undecided.

The conversation proceeded.

”It is pending pickup, but if it falls through I will let you know.”
“My best friend wants me to put a BMX together for his son and I could use it.”
Two minutes pass.
“Please tell me you still got it!"

“And so it begins,” I said again darkly to the muffin. The no-shirt type likes to mildly argue in a very pitiful way. It ends up sounding like begging, but it is argumentative because you can just tell that at any moment it can switch to down-right nasty.

I’ve had some interesting interactions scattered here and there over the years. I’ve had a few scammer attempts which were kind of fun, and quite a few people that didn’t speak English well that I nearly took to be scammers.

The most amusing one was from a lady I never even communicated with. My inbox was inundated with messages one morning and I threw in the towel on responding. After ten auto-response messages, enough is enough. After an hour this particular lady messaged me again to call me a bitch for not answering her. I chuckled at that one and decided not to answer again.

These people think they are good at persuasion or telling people off, or all sorts of things. But they have no idea what they are up against—I’ve had training.

Today, while going over the capitals with my son:

“Capital of Michigan?”
“Michigan City.”
I rolled my eyes while the boy looked to be gaining momentum and began again.
“Michigan City…otherwise known as Lansing…otherwise known as Poop City!”
Hysterical little boy laughter.

Do you know how many states are in this United States of America? That’s right, fifty. All fifty of them have capitals otherwise known as something. Only the boy knows what.

Bring it No-Shirt. I’ve got this in the bag.

You and my muffin.