The web is full of interesting stuff, but it’s also full of junk. Craigslist is no different– some of the apartments and houses there are the same fleatraps you’d find on your own through the classifies or through apartment hunting services. The goods for sale range from wonderful finds to the same kind of trash that you find at a garage sale at 4 p.m. on a Saturday. The jobs run the gamut from top flight legal jobs to writing porn blogs for adult websites. The personals are probably full of the same losers you find down at the bars at 2 a.m., with an occasional diamond in the rough.

But one area of craigslist is sometimes interesting. It’s on the left side of the screen, a link titled “best-ofs” or “best of craigslist.” These are the posts that have been flagged as unusual– different, better than average. Some of them were originally nestled within the personals, while others were initially posted in rants and raves, or in the community section.

The other day, while taking care of professional business, I had a short break. Since I had to stay glued to the computer, I decided to check out the rents in the area for comparison, and as always, checked out the job ads (I’ve found two past jobs that way, so it isn’t such a bad place to check, along with more traditional or tried-and-true venues). Out of curiosity, I clicked on the “best of” link. I’d like to share some of these with you, what I consider the more interesting examples of amateur prose at craigslist.

For those of you who aspire to be single, elderly “cat ladies,” now’s your opportunity. This guy in Seattle (and he didn’t indicate whether he was sleepless or not) wrote a tribute to his ex-girlfriend’s cat. He said, in part,

You are the only cat I ever liked…and I think you liked me as I’m the only person you let pick up and walk around with.

But maybe you won’t want him– he might fall in love with your cat, and not you. Then again, it’s worth a try, I’m just sayin’…

At some point in our lives, we’ve had some welcome (or unwelcome!) visitors on the weekends, especially right at moments when we least expect or want them. I still remember the first time we had such folks; my mother opened the door to our tiny apartment one Sunday afternoon when I was still rather small, and a family of three stood there. I still remember the daughter’s blue dress– the kind you wear to church on Sundays. It was the first time I’d ever heard of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But I digress. My mother was ten times more reserved and polite under the circumstance than this resident of North Dallas and his plucky pooch, and their experience with “door to door religious idiots.”

Our stalwart writer leads us to the central conflict and approaching climax thus:

Having already had enough of whoever is at the door, I decide to ignore it. The doorbell rings again. Fine. Anyone but Ed McMahon is going to be sorry.

I don’t want to spoil it for you, but the words “bloody,” “tool,” “scream,” “puke,” and “officer” appear after that. It has a (at least to me!) satisfactory ending, but I’ll put your curiosity to rest right now: the last word of this tale isn’t “scar.”

I’ll let you explore the rest on your own, but before I let you go, I’d like to share one more. This one means quite a bit to me, as a former (and future?) teacher. From Washington, D.C., we have an adjunct lecturer who expounds on the real joys of teaching. What this outstanding member of the profession has to say is something I’ve always believed, even though her area is science, and mine is history.

My business is to teach you science, and the real point of that is to help you to learn how to think. How to write. How to ask good questions and demand straight answers. Ten years from now you may not remember the difference between a reverse fault and a normal fault, but you’ll know how to find out.

For anyone in this country who believes that teachers (with the exception of a few “superstar” and “celebrity” professors at the top end) have the good life, our heroine puts it on the line:

The dirty little secret about teaching, especially as an adjunct (which is what a lot of us who teach evenings are) is that it pays…dirt. When you count the hours spent preparing, lecturing, writing, grading labs and papers, I’d make way more dollars flipping burgers than I do for a semester of teaching.

I nominate this lady for Secretary of Education. Too bad we’re only likely to garner her pearls of wisdom either through craigslist, or for those few in D.C., through her courses.

So the next time you’re bored, and you’re surfing through the garbage that clutters the web, zip on over to craigslist and check the “best of” category. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll smile, you’ll groan… and with luck, you’ll waste another hour or two. But you’ll also see some of the creativity and wit out there, and wonder why they’re on craigslist, and not out writing books.