Craigslist once again enriched my life and this time through its rideshare link . Being a young female in a new city in 2008, the thought of hooking up with some random and riding for hours in a vehicle and then traipsing around the mountain together was a little intimidating if not unsafe, stupid and crazy.
But this morning I took a leap of faith. After sifting through a few ads including those with headlines such as "ride offered to meadows," and "need ride to mt. hood meadows 1/8 powder yay," I responded to the one with this heading:
"MEADOWS: You want to give me a ride. (details inside)"
Inside it read: "Very simple proposition: You give me a ride & I share gas, I provide a couple j's maybe even buy you coffee. The earlier the better. We stay as long as you want. The end."
Included was the picture on the right.
I zipped off an email and within ten minutes got the voice mail. "Am I crazy?" I asked myself. I only had thirty seconds of recording to base my intuition on, but from his voice I sensed maturity, a clear goal (making it to the mountain) and a degree of normalcy. After a few minutes of chatting about the weather and road conditions, the blind date was on. Who could resist that animal?
What to wear? A typical question in preparation for the first of anything. I didn't want to out dress this random, or present myself in a way that would give the wrong impression of my riding style. I stuffed my options in a bag and that was that.
Eight fifty was leave time, but I didn't actually leave until nine. Traffic was extremely backed up, so I continued my tradition of keeping dates waiting and then having poor excuses for why I was late.
The hang time while driving to pick this dude up was nerve wracking. "What will he be like? What will he look like? Is he an ax murderer? Will he think the ax murderer joke is funny? What if he is really old/young/annoying/boring/weird? What if he steals/smokes/has a gold grill?" I wondered.
I found his house and shrank in the driver's seat for as long as I dared. "This is it," I thought, "Oh my god, I'm crazy."
One look in his eyes and I felt instantly at ease. He greeted me with coffee, muffins and snowboard in hand. The ax murderer scenario wasn't going to happen, so I slid my pepper spray back in to hiding.
Craigslist did me well. Never have I been so satisfied with a service. Many promising options, up to date information and positive ratings are only a few of Craigslist's positive features. Best of all I can finally stop searching and let Craigslist do my work.
No comments:
Post a Comment