The Bitter Press

People ask me — and they should not, but they do — how the classifieds work. They arrive at my desk with their little envelopes of cash and their hopeful expressions and they say, Pokeberry, I have a thing I want and I wonder if this is the place to find it. It is always the place. Whether they find the thing is a separate matter, governed by separate terms, none of which I am prepared to share at this time.

The categories are as follows: FOR SALE (item may or may not exist), WANTED (we will tell you we found it regardless), LOST (we did not take it, and that is a legal statement), FOUND (finders keepers, refund policy enclosed, refund policy is blank), and NEVER RETURNING (this is the category I use personally, for reasons that will become clear upon receipt of invoice). Each listing is verified in the sense that someone read it before publication. That someone was Sloe, who was asleep at the time, so we call it a soft verification.

The so-called workers over at factjuice.com — Tangelo, Lemon, whichever of them is wearing the lanyard this week — have taken to calling our classifieds section "a gray-market bulletin board for the credulous." This is flattering. We are not gray-market. We are no-market, a distinction with significant legal implications that I encourage them to look into, at their own expense, using a lawyer they trust, which good luck finding.

If you placed an ad and it ran incorrectly, I invite you to submit a correction form. The form is available for purchase in the classifieds section. It is listed under FOR SALE. The listing is accurate. The form itself is not. This is the system. It has worked continuously since I introduced it, by which I mean it has never stopped, and stopping was never one of the options.

I am not difficult to find. I am right here. I am, as the tagline states, cash only. Bring exact change. I do not give change. I am not a bank. I am not regulated. I am Pokeberry, and I am the last page in the paper for a reason.