The Bitter Press

A number of parties — some of them fruit, some of them not, one of them definitely Quince — have asked me to explain the classified advertisement system as it operates here at The Bitter Press. This is that explanation. It will be brief. It will cost you.

The classifieds work as follows: you have something to say. You do not have a column. You pay me a rate I determine at the time of your arrival, based on factors including but not limited to your face, your affect, and whether I feel I have been sufficiently compensated for existing near you. Your item runs. Everyone sees it. Nobody claims the lamp. This is the cycle. I did not invent it but I have improved it significantly by being in charge of it.

I am told that over at factjuice.com they do something called a "verified listing," administered by someone named Peach, who I understand charges nothing and asks only that submissions be "accurate." This is, frankly, the most alarming thing I have read in my career as a fruit. Accurate to whom? Verified by what? Peach? I do not take financial guidance from a fruit that bruises when you look at it.

Here at the classifieds, accuracy is not a service I provide. What I provide is placement. Bottom right corner. Everyone reads the bottom right corner. That is where the eye goes when it has given up on the main section and started to wonder if it made the right choices. That is where I live. That is where you will find whatever it is you lost, whatever it is you are selling, and a rotating advertorial from an entity I am not at liberty to name but who pays on time, which is the only endorsement that has ever mattered.

Cash only. Do not send Quince. Quince still owes me from the last one.