I can see how the ad itself would be funny, if it weren't so pathetic.
I can just imagine some poor, naive, 30 to 40-something divorcee` with no interest in the internet fruitlessly searching for a storyteller in the phonebook for hours before deciding that perhaps she should try this newfangled medium and get with the times. For a moment, the thought almost brings tears to her eyes as the reality that the world is moving faster than she is, and that she isn't getting any younger hits home. Pushing the thought from her mind, she gathers herself and sits down at the keyboard-TV to type a polite request for help.....
A few minutes later she sits back and admires her handiwork before submitting it. Her earlier pang of sadness has been replaced by a mild sense of pride.
"That wasn't so hard", she thinks.
"I should have listened to everyone who said this was a great site a long time ago!" Feeling a little foolish for her earlier self-doubt, and for not doing this before, she confidently contributes her very first internet submission.
She has about an hour before the kids get home, so she decides to see what else she can find and do here. Cautiously at first, she starts exploring a few of the tens of thousands of ads posted on Craigslist for her area. Within minutes, she is positively brimming with delight. The sheer volume of offers and want-ads take her aback. Raising the children by herself on a less-than-optimal wage for all these years has made her a keen bargain-hunter, and she feels like she has just found bargain-hunter heaven.
As she jumps from one page to another and another, her exuberation grows. This brave new world she has found is more than she ever imagined it could be. It promies unlimited possibilities in a surprisingly convenient and familiar format. For the first time in what seems like forever, she performs that abbreviated squeak-giggle that women produce when they cannot contain their happiness. She feels an optimism that she has not felt since the day her marriage began falling apart. Perhaps, in this exciting medium, she can find a new partner....a new father for her children, and a million other things besides. Lost in her musings, she almost doesn't hear the children as they bust through the front door and begin dropping their belongings onto the floor instead of putting them into the closet as they have been told to do a million times. Almost....
She awakes from here reverie and immediately sets about her usual late-afternoon routine of picking up the backpacks, inventorying the homework assignments contained within, and asking the children how their day was before she sets about preparing dinner. But this time she performs these tasks without the sense of drudgery that usually accompanies them. This time, the future is again looking bright.
The evening tasks of doing the dishes and setting the kids to their homework are finished in unusually prompt fashion. She hurries back to her computer, both to check on her ad and to explore more of the multitudinous wonders available. Excitedly, she opens the first response.....
And you know the rest.
How's that for a story?
