Declassified: Big Top Chic, Ricky Martin, and More

By John Semley

A lot of people do a lot of weird stuff on the internet, and ground zero for commercial e-weirdness is Craigslist. In Declassified, Torontoist combs over our city’s listings to find the best (and worst) of the bunch.

You call that a goofy hat? Try harder, sir. Illustration by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist.

Things Torontoist will herein declassify: the allure of not smiling at all, the boom in the circus décor market, the price people pay for used strollers, and the price people pay for used Ricky Martin CDs.

There are few things funnier than when people just can’t even conceive of a coherent youth culture at all. Like they just see some of the markers of young people binding with one another in a shared experience and get so alienated and start having an arrhythmia or something. Like this dude. “Eh look at your stupid kids crowding up my Bloor Street, sucking on your new-fashioned bubble [tea] not even smiling at all! Where do you get off, ya entitled nogoodniks?” This guy’s way out of touch. And not even standing in front of a thousand Skydomes wearing a thousand goofy hats can save him.

This person’s walking a real “tightrope” with their home décor choices here. Sure, we’ve all been there. We’ve all wanted to hop on the trolley and redecorate in that Big Top Chic style that’s been so popular since…never. But it’s hard to “juggle” all the elements and if you bung it up you end up looking like a bit of a “geek.” So just be careful. Because you want people to think you’re your condo’s “ringmaster.” Not some “clown.” “Lions.”

Um, excuse me? You’re selling what? A used stroller? And you want how much? Four hundred bucks, eh? Fat chance. Like I’m really going to pay four hundred whole dollars just to protect my recently born child. Why on earth would I—would anyone—spend four hundred bones on a stroller when you can just go down to Value Village and get one for a few bucks? Or rummage in the trash outside some condo project for a discarded one? You know what, to hell with all of that. I’m just going to put my baby in a wagon. Or a wheelbarrow. Or duct tape it to the dog. I mean it’s just a baby. What’s the worst that can happen? And you know what, forget that too. What do I even need to take this stupid baby outside for anyways? It’s just going to bitch and moan and start wailing at a brunch table and ruin everyone’s Sunday. And, like, who wants to see a baby in a stroller when they walk down the street? They’re stupid. You know what, I think my baby and I will just stay inside. Or even better, I’m not even going to have kids. So you can keep your shitty, second-hand $400 “freestyle” stroller. As if I’m going to Scarborough to get it, anyways. Thanks.

The great thing about Puerto Rican popstar and former person of interest Ricky Martin’s self-titled 1999 album is that it only sold something like twenty million copies. This means that if you own one, it’s probably super-duper valuable. A lot of people believe in supply-and-demand style economics. So, like, if there are only ten Wade Boggs rookie cards, they’re more valuable than if there are a hundred. But that’s just silly. What better sign of demand is there than a supply that fully meets it? It’s a variation on Worthington’s Law, which states that a person’s worth is directly proportionate to how much money they make. So if Ricky Martin moved twenty million copies of this album, it means that Ricky Martin is probably very rich, and thus, a great man. Which means it’s totally reasonable and not at all asinine to try and sell a used copy of this album on the internet. Oh wait. This one has a Spanglish radio edit of “Maria”? We were wrong to make fun.
Find listings we should include in our next edition? Email them to [email protected].