Craig's List: be prepared to be suprised
sarah coghlan '09 -- naked opinion editor

Craig’s List. I have spent the latter half of this semester obsessively checking Craig’s List. Yet, I still remain homeless for the summer. My relationship with the list has moved from one of infatuation and intrigue to one of utter bitterness. Each apartment appointment I schedule in the end haunts me like a blind date gone terribly wrong—tall, dark and handsome turned, well, everything but. Where is the honesty these days?

Perhaps it is just me, but I didn’t think Winooski was downtown Burlington nor spacious meant cramped. Who are these wordsmiths who linger behind Craig’s List? That is the real question. Romanticized postings featuring a potpourri of overused adjectives—gorgeous, airy, cozy, quaint. Alas, I fuel the fire, frantically emailing every post vaguely describing a two-bedroom apartment in the Burlington area. I still naively grasp onto the hope that someone out there can properly locate the part of Burlington that is downtown.

I’m desperate.

Never wanting to settle, at this point I am fully prepared to do just that—to a certain degree. I’m the type of person who has set her standards too high and thus constantly meets disappointment. We all have our cross to bear. Letting my dream studio with vaulted ceilings and French doors die, I now desire anything not resembling a drug den in the Old North End. Is that too much to ask? This is the question I struggle with.

My latest meet and greet featured four dogs, three huskies.

Previous to this encounter I thought I was a “dog person.” I now know this to be a lie. A dog person I am not. Four dogs in an apartment is four too many. Dogs shouldn’t live in apartments—it’s not fair for them, it’s not fair for us. Hair shed in such a contained area puts those of us with a passion for cleanliness into a state of panic and dogs certainly shouldn’t be surrounded by panicky people.

Upon first lick I knew that I couldn’t spend my glorious summer cohabitating with such beasts, only envisioning them gnawing on my beloved Timbuk2 bag and somehow delving into my delicious vegetarian eats. Rumor has it huskies love health food. Walking the quasi-husky breeding grounds, I wondered if I was the only one phased by the dogs. Was no one but me going to mention the fact that an animal weighing more than I do just nearly took me out in the doorway?

Was everyone but me having a “no big deal moment?” I most certainly was not.

This is why I believe Craig’s List to be everything but the E-Harmony of apartment hunting. Only on the list can one fail to mention the presence of four giant dogs and have this be an acceptable action, because, frankly everyone is somehow doing something similar. I realize it is hard to elicit response describing your apartment as a total dive, but let us be honest with each other here.

But, again, sometimes I wonder if it is just me—unable to accept the fact that my bathtub will not be supported by tiny ceramic feet.