I’m not actually a walrus, nor do I think the person that wrote that song was.
Throughout time, there have been great ideas. One of those is craigslist, and related classified sites. Through them, I have made some highly worthwhile transactions and obtained some great products at a collectively reasonable price. Of late, I have been scouring a local site with a classified section called KSL. See, I moved a few months ago. The apartment to which I moved was unfurnished. This was nice because I felt like a big boy, but ‘twas less than ideal because furniture can be expensive and difficult to obtain. This is where KSL comes in; KSL has a free section, where people post things for free. Like without cost. Through this, I’ve been able to track down decent furniture for said place. With enough diligence, someone can furnish an entire apartment literally for free. This is great for financially strapped young dudes, of which my roommates and I are several. And this is what I did. I was able to furnish my entire bedroom (mattress, box spring, dresser, desk, bookcase) for approximately $15. I feel good about this.
In this search for furniture, I sifted through a lot of postings for free things. Not long ago, I came across something that would change my life forever: a taxidermied walrus head.
What?: my first response. NEED: my second and overriding response. Of the strange and bowel-curdling things to find on the internet, this was one of them, and it reigns supreme. Of the things I find on the internet and want but don't need, this is a big one, and it reigns supreme. How did someone obtain this? Where did it come from? Why was it a thing? I had so many questions; I was twitter-pated. But I didn't need answers. All I needed was that walrus head.
I immediately texted the seller. "give me your walrus head," was my desperate plea. After 2 excruciating minutes, they hadn't responded and I couldn't risk being beaten out by another. I called the number; it went straight to voicemail. By this time I was in a panic. I writhed on the floor where I waited, pressed against my couch and circumstance. My crumpled body lie rung by helplessness, subject to the will of another. But there was no return to ignorance—I'd already seen too much. I couldn't just pretend that there was no walrus head and that I'd be happy without it on my wall. I'm just not that strong.
Minutes turned into hours, hours into hemorrhoids. Finally, as if respite from a heavenly messenger, the familiar buzz of a text shook the couch near my tear-drenched cheeks. "come pick it up$20." To this was reduced my humanity.
Encouraged by the contact, which glimmered as a beacon of brightest hope, I pressed on. I questioned the price (having found it in the free section), but decided that if he weren't willing to barter, $20 was worth foregoing a lifetime of regret. "mountain dew bottles work best," was the response.
… ?
I tried calling a couple more times, hoping to arrange the exchange before this man produced any more words, which only stood as a symbol of the separation between me and my one true desire. After continuing to call and reaching only a blank line, a confused child, and a strange one-sided conversation with a grown man, a disheartening reality began to vie for my attention.
Among the nice things about KSL is that it allows for many people to contact each other that wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Among the downsides of KSL, and internet-based interactions in general, is anonymity: an inability to interact with people face to face makes some of these transactions strange and uncomfortable, to say the least. It also allows for fake ads to be made with real numbers, and the perpetrator can walk away scot free. But the perpetratee is left to walk alone, forever held in tow by what might have been.
O Walrus mistress! O Cruellest of fates! O Heartless and cunning tricksters—Hear my lament! For such is the cry of a lover's scorn, wanting nothing of her own, yet left only therewith...
Eventually I accepted my suspicions as reality. Turns out the whole thing was a hoax. The ad was taken down shortly after my calls, and I was quickly able to find the exact same image that captured my heart merely minutes before on a google image search—an image that I thought represented something uniquely personal, something wholly mine. But an image near the top of a google image search is anything but.
I sat for a while, silent as the emptiness that had come to replace my boyish gumption. It's hard to lose something you hold dear; but sometimes it's harder never to have held it at all.
I sent a text to the number that was the source of my disdain—a disabused yelp into a mockingly indifferent void. In it, I offered congratulations for a prank well pulled. But the text was carried on the wings of heartache, borne on the winds of sorrow. And I hope they felt it.
Sometimes we are defined by the choices we make and the life we choose to live. Sometimes, just as defining is the life that passes us by, despite our ever reaching, ever yearning.
I am not the walrus, and I will never be.
