Craig's List: Buyer Beware

Finding a deal on Craig's List may be quite an arduous yet fulfilling, so when Sarah requested that I accompany her into the greater Los Angeles area to buy a couch she came across on the site, I willingly agreed. She picked me up straight from work and off we went, fighting our way through rush hour traffic to a place in which she would not tell me where we were going. Three highways and a dead-end later, we rolled into a neighborhood with more billboards in unknown languages than English. I had no idea where I was and no idea what I would find when we got to where we were going.

Google maps directed us to an unmarked street with a row of apartments. Getting out of the car Sarah led me to the door and timidly reached her hand up to knock. "You do it," she said pulling back her hand and stepping behind me. Laughing, I knocked on the door and was less than greeted by an elderly, non-English speaking woman who promptly shut the door in my face. I knocked again, and explained myself to which she replied by pointing her gnarled finger behind her and again closing the door. Sarah looked at me and I looked at Sarah, puzzled yet intrigued by what was going on. "I'm going to go around the back of the apartment, you can stay here," I told Sarah; she quickly followed behind me. The woman opened the back door and pointed the same finger down the alley. "Thank you," I said, hoping that these would not be the last words I spoke.

As Sarah and I headed down the narrow walkway, I pretended to be self-assured when in my mind I imagined headlines of "Two stupid girls die in Craig's List Couch Caper." We kept walking. And walking. To my left, a tattoo parlor enshrouded in barbed wire, to my right a caged pit bull so large I could put a saddle on it and use it as an alternate form of transportation. And walking. Finally, I hear a language that I recognize and turn to see a woman standing in front of a open garage storage unit. "You're here for the couch?"

Fumbling through a 12x12 space crammed full of unmarked boxes, the woman and her two helpers retrieve a rather less than promising container. As they uncover the plastic wrapped sofa, the woman reassures us that the furniture "came from [her] store that closed down. Bad economy." Unfortunately our timidness continued to grow as she explained that the faux-leather couch could be paid for in cash and delivered the next day. Graciously I tell the woman and her two men that we would think about it and call her back. I grab Sarah by the arm and escorted back to the car. "What do you think," she whispered. "I'll tell you when we get in the car," I replied through the side of my mouth.

We make it back to the car unscathed and I erupt in laughter. "Well, how do you feel about buying stolen furniture," I ask. "If by her store closing down she means it fell off the truck between here and Tijuana, then, yes, I think you should buy it." Sarah smiled and laughed, and then we drove off into the sunset to Ikea (and eventually In-N-Out).