A Wild Craigslist Adventure

(No, not like that.)

So from a very young age I’ve had an interest in the arts and I’ve always wanted a drafting table, a slick professional one. But I don’t want to get ripped off buying a cheap new one, or buy a really expensive lemon.

So sometimes I check the art section of my local Craig’s List and one day, lo and behold, I found one for under fifty dollars. A nice old name brand one. A professional one a few small towns away so I sent a message and the lady on the other side invited me to come get it, warning that it’s big.

Being the artgeineer that I am, I grabbed my screwdriver kit with hex bits in the kit and took a drive to meet a stranger on the internet.

The directions given led me onto a rural two lane road, then a dirt road, and to a gate in the middle of the land of the Hills Have Eyes. I had directions to call, so I did. I don’t remember if the gate was open or if it was opened remotely for me but I was told to put my car in second gear and drive up this really steep hill dirt road. So I did.

So my little matrix went zooming up the hill to a circle gravel driveway of a fucking mansion. Yes. A mansion.

A mansion with an amazing hillside view of a valley.

There I met a very nice lady. She had me back down the hill on the other side to a basement garage.

I looked at the drafting table, then my car, then the table, and then my car. I lowered my back seats to convert the back of the matrix into a pseudo-truck bed.

Then I took the writing surface off the table with my handy screwdriver kit. Lo and behold it fit snugly into my car’s massive trunk!

The used drafting table belonged to the lady and before that a famous architect. She hadn’t used it in a few years and wanted it to go to someone who would cherish it and use it for creative things. I explained that I’m an aspiring artist, art student, and engineering student and that I enjoy making things. All the things.

Turns out she was the person who designed the mansion. It’s called Casa Bella Verde.

This drawing board is special. It’s been passed around by genius people, and now it’s mine.

Per her advice I hosed the entire thing down and dried it properly before bringing it up a flight of stairs into my condo bedroom office for use. Some of the paint flaked off of the device meaning it needs a new paint job which I’ll get for it someday.

There it sits in a corner of my room with a stool, waiting to be used because I have art block. There it sits.

Tomorrow I start the first in the drawing series at the local University because they didn’t honor the drawing class I took two decades ago. The professor wants us to get a drawing board and I was looking at them on Amazon and said, “Why would I get a drawing board when I have an actual drafting table sitting right there?”

So I bought a laptop stand mount that I can attach to the drawing board so I can attend class there, and a cellphone tripod with a light on it so I can broadcast my work at the table without issues.

I’m going to probably do a weird flex and ask the professor if a drafting table is okay.

And that is how I got a drafting table.

I should name it. Danny the Drafting Table.