I admit it: I’m a bit off my rocker.

People who know me, get how I am. Loving, caring, open-arms ready to receive any and all. Everyone is welcome at my table – regardless of gender, color, sexual identity, religion, or fandom. The more, the merrier in my world.

So we’re moving in about three weeks, yeah? I did the unthinkable. I posted an ad on Craigslist looking for assistance. We need people who can mainly stuff boxes and zombie parts into the UHaul, along with tables and chairs. Simple right? Social experiment, here we come!

Here’s what I posted:
“Family of five needs HELP moving!

WHEN: Sunday May 10th
TIME: 9am – 12noon (minimum, this could be a 9-2pm job if we don’t have enough hands to help)
PLACE: Shoreview

We’ll be relocating on Sunday, May 10th – yes, it’s Mother’s Day, but we really didn’t have a choice on the timing unfortunately.

We’re moving about 2 miles from our current residence. A Shoreview to Shoreview residential move.
No, we’re far from rich; we rent to stay in this school district because we can’t afford to buy a house here. Trust.

Here’s what we are planning: We currently live in a 3 bedroom house to give you an idea of volume. We’ve decided to pack all the boxes ourselves, and put them in the garage so they will just need to be loaded onto a moving truck. We have lots of boxes, a skeleton, as well as several zombies to be moved, so I hope you’re not thrown off by that.

The bigger things we’d definitely need help with are: Tables, utility racks, giant spiders, beds, and a few dressers, as well as a crib and mattresses. No! Don’t worry about the giant spiders – they’re not real. It’s okay. (Related Note: We have a bunch of Halloween items since our anniversary is around that time of year and it’s pretty much a “Here’s a new zombie gnome! Happy anniversary!” kind of thing for us.)

We are willing to pay FOUR people $50 EACH (at the very least) … AND we will FEED YOU. No, no! We won’t feed you TO the zombies! We’ll feed you Little Caesar’s pizza at the very least, and supply soda or water.

Arrival time requested: 9am. We’ll likely need a minimum of three hours for 2 loads – loading up at old house, unloading at new residence, loading again at old place, and unloading final time at new place. You will have first choice of anything we decide we can’t be buggered to deal with. This may include such things as end tables, random art, craft, and furniture items, baby toys, faded outdoor Little Tikes yard toys, and a bike or something with wheels.

I place all our ads with very tongue-in-cheek humour, but we DO need help. Like I said before, we’re far from rich – we’re parents of three kids under the age of 14, and none of them very muscular. Plus, I’m sure they have child labor laws against using toddlers as pack mules.

Serious inquiries only please.”
(original ad can be viewed here.)

We’ve received 15 responses so far, ranging from mildly annoying (“Send more dets!”) to indecipherable, garbled words just shoved together (“imfree2 help u moov”); then there are the lovely folks – the dad who gets that we’re not made of money, the poor college student who just wants to make an extra buck and have some free food, and the woman and her son who live nearby and are ready and willing to “get ‘er done!”

My point in posting this article is to show that there are good people out there, even on Craigslist, willing to help even the kookiest of people – myself to name one – and do so at possible risk to themselves.

Internet safety discussions haven’t been as widely encouraged in the last few years I’ve noticed; people think everyone was born with common sense. Nope. Just look at the Darwin Awards  if you need confirmation of that fact.

Seeing as I have basically crowned myself ‘Everyone’s Mom’, I wanted to remind you of some basic things to be aware of for your own safety.
Craigslist advises:

“When meeting someone for the first time, please remember to:

• Insist on a public meeting place like a cafe.
• Do not meet in a secluded place, or invite strangers into your home.
• Be especially careful buying/selling high value items.
• Consider making high-value exchanges at your local police station.
• Tell a friend or family member where you’re going.
• Take your cell phone along if you have one.
• Consider having a friend accompany you.
• Trust your instincts.”

Now, our house is in a densely populated area. We made it pretty clear we have little of value, and my husband Dave is a large man. We’ll have our cell phones with us, and the only person riding in the cab of the Uhaul will be my husband. Everyone we know locally knows what we’ve got going on for Mother’s Day – hell, the entire Interwebs know now. We’re also working on the safety plan of having the kids be watched elsewhere at a friend’s house for a few hours until we’re done moving things and have paid the helpers and sent them off with pizza lining their pockets.

I should also mention, this isn’t the first time we’ve used the Powers That Be via Craigslist for something kind of major.

In the past, we found our last – and current – rental house through Craigslist, as well as the new rental house we’ll be moving into. Granted, I placed the ad on Craigslist of what we were looking for, and the landlords contacted us. We did due diligence though – checking on the status of their rental license through the city and confirmation of their identities, etc. – before we even saw the new house. The trick, after all, is to be safe.

So wish us well as we relocate our zombies, Lalaloopsy dolls, beds, a crib, a few giant spiders, and a whole crap-ton of boxes… that our social experiment goes well and everyone is friends by the end of the afternoon. Hey, a girl can hope, right?