Dear Craiglist

You are an integral part of life as an urban twenty-something. We find apartments, furniture and even love (or a mid-afternoon sexual tryst)... in fact, one of my friends made her living on your odd jobs list for months at a time.

But while I do thank you profusely for leading me to my last three not-too-overpriced apartments, one thing still bothers me. While we're buddies and all - and that's cool - at the heart of it, this is still a business relationship and as such it comes with a few expectations. You're just not very dependable, Craiglist. I mean, in the beginning while the post is new, the interest is hot and heavy... but then when it comes time to clinch the deal, all the anxious emails turn into no-shows. Why, Craiglist? What's with your fear of commitment?

For example, we recently bought new shelves, and turned to you to sell the old ones. A tall bookcase and matching media shelves of the popular Ikea Billy line, great condition, priced to move at $30 for the pair. (Seriously, that's an incredible deal, right?) We were inundated with emails and yet... no matter how ardently they expressed their interest, not one showed to pick up the damn shelves. After several missed appointments I finally called the most recent (for whose benefit we'd missed kickboxing at the gym, thank you very much) and demanded an explanation. His excuse was that he got drunk after work... and forgot. While I should have probably seen the warning signs - his brilliant plan would have been to carry the shelves 20 blocks home and btw, were they heavy? - still, this was kind of the last straw.

We did eventually sell the shelves to some guy from Jersey. Who had the gall to ask us to reduce the price by $10 "for gas and tolls". (We said no.) Then he wanted us to carry them down to his car. (Yeah, right.) But while we are glad the shelves are finally gone, we're not entirely satisfied, Craiglist. Selling perfectly good shelves for practically nothing should not be this painful! Please do try harder to be a little more reliable the next time, ok? We have this extra lamp we really need to get rid of...

Yours truly,

Ali & Heron