I just moved and have some household items I have to sell -- things that are too small or too big for the new place. Saturday morning I took some photos and posted two ads on craigslist. Six hours later, I removed said ads and was done with the whole business.

Quite frankly I was surprised it went so fast. A woman called and left a message about my dining room table and chairs while I was out for a late lunch. I returned her call and she wanted to come over and see it. The topic of fitting it into her car came up and she told me what kind of car she had and I said ok. I was excited someone was interested because it was the first phone call I'd gotten about the ads, but then I began to contemplate how crazy it was to invite a complete stranger over to my new home.

An hour later a man called, asked for me and said he was downstairs and I started to think...What a clever scam -- have the woman call and set up the appointment, but send the man to the actual address. Clever and diabolical indeed. But because I had gotten an email from a man's address with her name on it (she had a really unique name), I assumed they were husband and wife and I looked out the window and the car she had mentioned over the phone was downstairs so I went down and let them both in.

They came up, looked over the table and chairs, agreed they both wanted them, and then as she was counting money out of her wallet, she asked, So what do you do at ___? You work there, right? And I froze for a second, then said, How do you know that? And her husband laughed and said, caller id! Damn work issued cell phone! He continued, any anonymity you thought you had is gone. It made me laugh (and also immediately wonder if I'd called anyone else back).

Then 15 minutes later another couple came over to look at the rug. Again -- woman called, asked if she could she come over right now to look at it. I said ok. I got to the door and she was adorable and looked non-threatening. He had murder in his gorgeous sky blue eyes. But I let them both in anyway. She got excited about the rug, and he completely softened and became solicitous -- it was actually quite sweet. She paid me; they took the rug. The end.

I don't know the magic of craigslist and how it is that I've never had a bad experience on it. I've met people on craigslist, I've bought both my motorcycles off there, I found my writing group, I've found all of my SF apartments on there, and my pet rat, now I've even sold stuff, and almost every person I've interacted with via ads on craigslist has resulted in a pleasant experience (I had one slighly unpleasant experience with a woman trying to sell a motorcycle, but I didn't buy her bike and it wasn't that big of a deal). What are the odds though? And how often are there unpleasant experiences -- because I find it hard to believe all these strangers come together via anonymously posted ads and end in 100% satisfaction. I think I'm just lucky all my experiences have.