This Mysterious Thing Called KSL

Utah's Craigslist, though it does exist, is less popular than our KSL classifieds.  KSL is our local channel 5 news station, and somehow, the classified ads are booming.  My sister has sold some crazy crap on there, like her old fence, blown down and broken by the wind.  Leave it to Katie.  She'll find a way to turn garbage into money for herself.

I like KSL and have purchased a good number of things I've found while browsing its cyber shelves.  I've even sold a few things (although Katie would have likely fetched more for them).  Hazel's princess bike sold in a matter of minutes to a little girl a few blocks away, and a little red cabinet Jed painted is housing someone else's CDs and DVDs.  A good toaster oven and shabby chic bassinet have yet to find new homes, and so live adrift in our overflowing shed-- the real island of misfit toys. But I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that KSL will place them with good families soon.

KSL has been good to us though, and I've driven a hard bargain (you know that's not true) for an iPod, an iPhone, and a bike for Hazel.  The bike would have cost a whole $15, were it not for the $150 ticket I got for missing a stop sign while trying to follow directions to get to the seller's house in Salt Lake.  We found Julian and Parley a few stellar Power Ranger costumes that came with a bonus Ninja Turtle ensemble to boot!  The whole set of costumes, before the $45 locksmith fee because Julian locked the whole family out of the car, also cost $15. 

Locksmith fees and traffic citations aside, we've had some good luck with our classified purchases.  And when, at the recent Freedom Festival Parade, the KSL float came by bearing news anchors smiling and waving atop, Parley yelled, "KSL! KSL!"  Neither the BYU float nor the Jetsons balloons generated nearly the same excitement. 

I hadn't ever thought about the mystery that the KSL classifieds might be to the kids, especially when you consider the incredible variety of items one is able to purchase there, until we went to search for a trampoline a few weeks ago at a sporting goods store at the mall.  We walked in together as a family and the kids went from ball to helmet to glove trying everything out.  It was at the height of this pleasurable frenzy that Parley said, as if discovering gold at the end of the rainbow, "Is this KSL?"  Julian, who insists that IKEA is actually the physical KSL, would have disagreed if he hadn't been too busy knocking over a rack of running shorts.

As I hurried them out to the car before anything else in the store was damaged, I remembered why my kids don't know what a mall is.  Thank you KSL classifieds.