Hunting down Craig's list in a pick up truck

I am amazed at the wonders on Craig’s List. I was in need of a dresser (or several) since I have lived in my apartment almost a year and have left stuff still in boxes. My search for a dresser turned out to be quite amusing. I found a great huge dresser on the upper upper west side for free. The only hitch was getting it down 5 flights of stairs. Obviously, I couldn’t strap it on a dolly and it on the subway (like I did with all the other stuff I bought), so I hired a guy with a truck. His ad in Craig’s list was “guy with pick-up truck”. Enough said. He offered to drive me all around town and help me move furniture for a flat fee of $50. Game on.

I met the guy in the LES/little Italy. Unfortunately, the first stop was a bust because the girl put the wrong picture in the add and the real dresser (for $15) was crap. I hoped in his truck cab, and before people start lecturing me about hopping into stranger’s cars let me say his wife was also there. Her job was to watch the truck while we moved stuff because she had never passed a drivers test….in 30 years! Driving with them was a hoot because he finished off two packs of cigarettes in two hours! My favorite line of the night was “well the seat belt hasn’t worked in a while, so can you just drape it over you so I don’t get a ticket”. No worries since he was a relatively calm driver (considering I have ridden in too many crazy cabs).

Our second stop was in Soho where a girl was selling a set of six bookshelves for $25. The pictured showed one and it was tall and thin. However pushing six of them together would make for excellent storage. I was disappointed once again when the girl only had one bookshelf. I got the “wow, I should reword the ad”. You think douche bag hag!

No worries because we still had the money shot up in the UWS. Sure enough, the drawers in the massive dresser (sooo nice but sooo heavy) could not be removed. We therefore had to take the entire thing down 5 flights of narrow stairs. The guy who was moving across country was quite cute (otherwise I would have played it up) and sympathetic. He basically saw that I was in no shape to carry a big ass dresser (hey I am not one to encourage more work for me), so he and the truck guy moved it for me. Hurrah! Considering I did no lifting, made several stops, got a nice huge dresser, and an amusing story to boot, I would say it was the best $50 I’ve ever spent.

On Wednesday, Bree and I had a date. Yep a dinner and a movie, friends style. To start out, we took the 6 train down to the end of the line. Then it makes a big U-turn and ends up on the northbound side. When it is making the U-turn, it passes through the old City Hall subway station. Evidently in the 1920-50’s it was considered the Jewel of the city. I saw it featured on the NY1 network and have been looking forward to checking it out since. Unfortunately, the station uses a lot of natural daylight (from its wrought iron decorative skylights), so our night-time visit did not reveal much. I included pictures of what it looks like all lit up. The one interesting thing was that our subway car was all decorated in a jungle theme. Seriously it was like I was in a freaking bag of grass clippings. I felt like any minute a lion, tiger, or Tyranasaurs Rex would jump out.