WANTED: SOMEONE TO EXPLAIN THE CLASSIFIEDS. REWARD: UNSPECIFIED. INQUIRE CAREFULLY.
People ask, occasionally, what the classifieds are for. This is the wrong question. The right question is whether you have cash on your person and whether you intend to leave here in good health. Most people, upon reflection, find they have answered their own question and depart satisfied.
The classifieds serve several functions. They allow private individuals to sell items of ambiguous provenance. They allow businesses — legitimate, semi-legitimate, or operating under a name that has since been retired — to reach a readership that has stopped asking why. They allow the lost to post notices about things they have lost, and the found to post notices about things they have found, and neither party ever contacts the other, which is how everyone prefers it. This is the system. The system works.
What the classifieds do not do is operate a fact-checking department. That is, I am told, a concern over at factjuice.com, where Tangelo and the rest of the so-called workers spend their afternoons verifying things. Verifying. As if the free market of human desperation required verification. As if the gentleman selling a quantity of chairs, some assembly required, do not ask about the upholstery needed a second opinion. He does not. He needs a buyer. That is what we provide.
Durian has suggested we add a disclaimer to the classifieds page. Quince has suggested we add a second disclaimer disclaiming the first. I have suggested that both of them are welcome to submit a paid advertorial at standard rates, cash only, and that the rates have recently increased. This concluded the editorial meeting.
The classifieds are open. The back page is warm and dimly lit and does not require your real name. Rates on application. Pokeberry does not issue refunds. This has been stated before. It will not be stated again after this, as stating it again would imply that the first statement required reinforcement, which it did not.