The perfect bait This last week I sold some fairly unattractive bedside tables that we’d picked up from my in-laws. Nobody in the family wanted them, but because they were ‘free’, we were obliged to accept them. There's another blog I could do on life with a packrat, but not today. So I promptly put an ad on craigslist. I wasn’t really all that hopeful that anybody would pay $50 for the pair, but I was hopeful nonetheless.

Surprise, surprise! Within 2 minutes of posting the ad, I had 5 people interested in coming to see them. All women, many of whom use cute background wallpaper on their emails. Pink butterflies, precious moments figures, crap like that.

So I thought to myself, “ Self, if you were a bachelor, you could be on to something here.” I think I may have stumbled upon the perfect way to setup chance meetings with available women. Of course, it doesn’t do me any good, but I still enjoy the thrill of discovery. In fact, if you’re reading this, chances are you’re married. You should stop reading immediately and go do something productive. For every body else, read on.

In the case of the ugly bedside tables, a reasonably attractive woman in her 30’s and the woman’s mother turned up first. We immediately fell into a conversation about the weather, furniture, cragislist, etc. It could easily have morphed into a friendship of some sort, but I wasn’t really motivated. Had I been single and desperate (as I often was when I was single), it would have been a different prospect altogether. Not exactly the trophy catch, especially with Mom standing there, but then I hadn’t really been trying.

With a little tweaking, it seems to me you could bring almost any type of woman (or man) to your door). All you need is the right item to sell. Ugly tables obviously won’t bring 25-year-old playmates, but I’m sure something else will. And it need not be something currently taking up space in your garage—there’s no reason you can’t head over to The Pottery Barn and pick up whatever you think you need, and then turn right around and resell it.

A few examples to illustrate—

1. Celine Dion collection—posters, signed albums, imprint of her enormous nose perhaps. This could go a lot of directions. You can’t be too picky about age, and you could get some rather large interested buyers, but they’re likely to be eager for a date.
2. A really cute, small, overpriced house. You need some money to pull this off, and you have to make it cute enough and small enough to weed out the couples. However, you can use the house’s style to finely tune respondents to your taste. You could go artsy, modern, town & country, or even country farmhouse (for you Elly May Clampett fans out there). For the younger audience, try posting rentals instead of “for sale”.
3. Jewelry. Must be accompanied by a sentimental vignette about how a fictitious girlfriend cruelly dumped you. As with the house ploy, the type of jewelry is key in bringing in the right game. Watch out for jailbait if you sell some Hello Kitty earrings, and watch out for 50-year old divorcés if you’re selling modern silver chokers.
4. Red VW Cabrio. Enough said. You might get some interested gay men, but I say, be open-minded! Give it a whirl if he’s good looking. How far wrong could you go?
5. Puppies!! And you’ll have fun with this even if nothing happens with the ladies. You could go with a pure breed, but that gets expensive. I’d find some really cute mutts, and then make up a story about the mother getting run over by a police car or something. No real woman can refuse a puppy. Then again, a lot of guys are likely to turn up, too. Comments on how to discourage couples and guys would be appreciated.
6. The Feminine Mystique, 1^st edition, signed by Betty Friedan. Have you lost your ever-loving mind? Do you want some hippie with bushy armpits riding the bus to your house, to look at a book and lecture you on the evils of men? This is not part of the plan. If you fell for this one, perhaps you should stick to match.com.

  ¶ 12:34 PM