YSaC, Vol. 368: I hear the helicopter …

2009 July 20

There’s something very sweet about this ad, but there’s also something very, very wrong about it as well.

Young Bachelor in Need


Hello my son is 24 and moving into his very first own place today. He just came out of a nasty relationship and is a bachelor. I am with my husband who is a truck driver and we will not be home for two weeks to help. He has no furniture, and any good clean furniture would be appreciated as well as household items including fans , blankets pots, pans etc that no one needs anymore. He can pick up. ( Pictures, comic books old dvds that will keep him busy and u no longer need dvd player anything). He works full time so he is not a slouch, its just rough for young people, and I am not home to help him move or set him up so i feel bad. We are not asking for charity. He can work for good furniture or work out a payment schedule if the items are cheap and things he likes and needs. He is a good boy. He has no bed or living room couch or chair at all and no blankets or fans. I am sure any food donations would also be appreciated. Likewise, I often help others in need and will reciprocate to any person I can help. Thank You and God Bless. Please email xxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com or call xxx xxx xxxx. His name is Tony.

It’s nice of Tony’s mom to try to help out her son, but … ma’am, Tony is 24 years old. He needs to be able to figure out how to do things (like go to the Salvation Army or use Craigslist) on his own now. At some point he’s going to walk into his new apartment and say to himself, “Self, I’d like to sit down but I don’t have any chairs. How can I rectify this situation?” And rather than having his answer be, “I know! I’ll call Mom and see if she has any chairs, or any idea about how to acquire them!”, he SHOULD be able to figure out how to acquire chairs on his own.

Your son is almost a quarter century old — why are you asking people for comic books or old dvds to “keep him busy”? (Is it wrong that I’m tempted to send a “Thomas the Tank Engine” dvd?) Doesn’t he have hobbies? Friends? Or have you coddled this poor boy so much that he’s strangled his social life with your apron strings?

Thanks for the submission, ElephantsChild!

37 Responses leave one →
  1. 2009 July 20
    MsDolfinn permalink

    Wow…I would LOVE to see the personal ad his mother placed for him. I’m sure there is one out there somewhere.

    Adores: 1
    • 2009 July 20
      flaco permalink

      I was expecting this ad to go in that direction too.

      Adores: 0
  2. 2009 July 20
    dogface permalink

    I’m sure this dude is perfectly capable of finding his own furniture and whatnot, it’s just that checking out the Adult Services section of Craigslist is keeping him awfully busy.

    Adores: 0
  3. 2009 July 20
    PrincessLuceval permalink

    Why in the world is he moving out of his mom’s basement in the first place?

    And do we need to wonder hard as to why his relationship failed?

    Adores: 0
    • 2009 July 20
      dogface permalink

      My guess is that he was leeching off his ex and that his idea of working consisted of selling crap on eBay while playing World of Warcraft. Instead of cleaning up after himself, the dude left piles of dirty clothes and half-eaten food around the house and never flushed the toilet. The second the ex brought up the subject of “just us quality time,” the dude suddenly had plans with “the guys” (i.e. he was going to sit alone in the bar and leer at whoever walked past). The ex got tired of a useless bum hanging around the house and gave him the boot. Now homeless and moneyless, the dude returns to leech off the his first host in life: his mom.

      (Oooh, that sounds like a bad soap opera or something! XD )

      Adores: 1
      • 2009 July 20
        PrincessLuceval permalink

        I like how Mrs. Tonymom is not going to let him have anything from her house. Not even his bed.

        Adores: 1
        • 2009 July 20
          corn flakes permalink

          I wondered the same thing. Even if he had living with a girlfriend and using all of her stuff, at some point in his life he lived at home. Where did his bed blankets go. Is mom doing this post out of guilt from selling all of tony’s stuff when he moved out?

          The spoiled baby. You don’t need things like furniture or blankets or kitchen utensils. In college, my house only contained a sleeping bag, 2 beach towels, and a case of High Life. Tony is a diva!

          Adores: 0
    • 2009 July 20
      jackie31337 permalink

      I was also wondering why he can’t just “house sit” for his parents for the two weeks they’ll be away rather than sleep on the floor of his empty apartment. There is definitely something very wrong here.

      Adores: 3
      • 2009 July 20
        drmk permalink

        That was my first thought too, jackie!

        Adores: 1
  4. 2009 July 20

    like 2 weeks without those DVDs would be crucial

    Adores: 0
  5. 2009 July 20

    This ad is really sad, but … I also want to laugh? Because Tony and Tony’s mom obviously have some issues? It sounds almost like she’s trying to find a good home for her dog. (e.g., “He is a good boy,” please send pictures and DVDs to keep him busy so he doesn’t go through the trash or piss on the floor again.) (I shudder to think about what kind of pictures will “keep him busy,” and I shudder once more at the thought of his mom procuring them for him.)

    Adores: 1
  6. 2009 July 20
    Lambent permalink

    How will ‘pictures’ keep him busy? What on earth does that mean? Do I want to know??

    Adores: 1
  7. 2009 July 20

    I have a suspicion that Tony wrote this himself. It’s way more likely that people will give him stuff if they think it’s his mom worrying for the well-being of her child, rather than a 24 year old asking for stuff he should already know how to get.

    Adores: 0
    • 2009 July 20

      Completely agree. I think he’s running the Bates Motel and he’s sitting in an empty room thinking about how he wouldn’t even harm a fly.

      Adores: 0
    • 2009 July 20
      PrincessLuceval permalink

      He probably sends flowers to himself, too, from his “secret admirer.”

      Adores: 0
  8. 2009 July 20
    Lola permalink

    So, what, he’s too good to curb shop/dumpster dive?!?

    I love that his alleged* parents care enough to post the ad but won’t give him a stick of furniture. Or show him how to scan CL for things people might even give away (I’ve never done this, maybe there aren’t any ads?) free as long as he comes and gets it?

    *As stated above, it might actually be him trying to appear less pathetic.

    Adores: 0
  9. 2009 July 20
    Colleen in MA permalink

    Flash-forward 60 years from now: Hello my son is 84 and moving into an assisted-living residence today. He is newly widowed. I am with my husband in heaven and therefore cannot be there to help. If you can pick him up at the hospital and drop him off at his new residence at your convenience I would be forever thankful and will put in a good word for you with God. It’s just rough for old people, and I am not home to help him move or set him up so I feel bad.

    Adores: 7
  10. 2009 July 20
    Charlene permalink

    If that’s what he’s trying, he’s failing miserably at trying to sound less pathetic. I wondered at first if the son was developmentally disabled.

    Adores: 0
  11. 2009 July 20

    I especially liked the “its just rough for young people” line, as if dear Tony is 11 years old and has had too much homework assigned by those meanie teachers.

    Adores: 0
  12. 2009 July 20
    cee permalink

    what’s with the fixation on fans? like OH MY GOD MY SON CAN’T SURVIVE TWO WEEKS WITHOUT BLOWING AIR AROUND!

    Adores: 1
  13. 2009 July 20

    Perhaps he’s Down’s and Mom just forgot to mention it.

    Adores: 0
  14. 2009 July 20
    PrincessLuceval permalink

    I just reread the ad. Food donations? Seriously?

    Adores: 0
  15. 2009 July 20
    Mrphysic permalink

    ‘…We are not asking for charity…’

    ‘…food donations would also be appreciated…’

    …I’m not a hypocrite……I just like contradicting myself………God Bless

    Adores: 2
  16. 2009 July 20

    I’m wondering if it isn’t really the mother that wants the furniture, and this is just a way of her not sounding as desperate as she is.

    I remember ending up back at home at 25 (and then politely being asked to move out again, for obvious reasons) and obtaining furniture certainly wasn’t on top of my “to do” list. It went something like:

    *Look at porn on the Internet
    *Talk awkwardly to girls
    *Find food and drink to get me through the day

    I really didn’t care whether I had to sleep on a folded blanket on the floor.

    …did I just share too much?

    Adores: 1
  17. 2009 July 20
    bonni permalink

    ‘Just out of prison’ would be my guess. Working full-time but not earning enough to buy food or comic books? (Community service?) But I don’t like how she says “he is a bachelor” the same way that she would say he has severe physical disabilities. Like: “Oh, he’s a BACHELOR! Well then of COURSE he’s completely useless! Now I feel really sorry for him. Here, bachelor, here is a perfectly nice jacket I found in the dumpster.”

    Adores: 1
  18. 2009 July 21
    brashieel permalink

    This one is just baffling. If its really his mom, why isn’t she willing to kick in with a cot/old blankets/whatever? If its him… why? Assuming he’s willing to drive around the odds are pretty good that his local CL ads offer an awful lot of free junk to anyone who’ll pick it up.

    Even if we lives in some barren wasteland where people AREN’T desperately trying to unload their old scruffy furniture without having to pay to have it hauled away… Wal-Mart and the Salvation Army are both just about omnipresent.

    Being a bachelor is no excuse. It honestly makes things easier. You need a tv, a couch, and a microwave. Ideally a pillow and at least one blanket. Some kind of pc wouldn’t hurt. Presto, minimalist bachelor apartment!

    Adores: 1
  19. 2009 July 21
    scotti permalink

    You know, it could be that Tony has taken care of all this stuff himself. It could be that mom is the one who has issues, not Tony.

    Hey, my mom told me today to be sure to drive with my lights on. I’m in my 40s. I figured out driving safety decades ago. She’s just nuts.

    Adores: 1
    • 2009 July 23

      I get the: “Do you want to go to pee?”. I’m nearly 35. I’d think I’d know if I did, by now.

      Adores: 1
  20. 2009 July 21

    I kind of wonder if he just got out of an abusive situation and had to scramble for a place to live. If he WAS living with a partner, his parents might have gotten rid of his childhood furniture and he probably wouldn’t have been able to grab stuff from his previous residence if he was living with an abuser. And even working full time, if you suddenly have to get your own place… the deposit for an apartment is pretty expensive. A deposit, first month’s rent, AND furniture and food is a lot to cough up all at once.

    I worked with a woman who woke up one day and realized that being screamed at, threatened, and hit really wasn’t a normal part of a relationship. She’d moved from the East Coast to Chicago and didn’t know anyone and had no family in the area. She was able to find an intensely shitty basement apartment on extremely short notice (she was riding buses all night because she had no place else to go and they were heated and safe) but that ate up all her money. Her boyfriend, of course, didn’t want her working in the first place and had tried to control her money so she had nothing saved up.

    Anyway, I gave her some dishes and kind of crappy kitchenware we’d recently upgraded and some bedding and that was a big chunk of money she didn’t have to spend for awhile and she was able to buy groceries and a futon mattress. This guy might be in a similar situation.

    Although, yeah, the ad IS fucking weird and kind of creepy.

    Adores: 1
  21. 2009 July 22
    Count Blah permalink

    See, even if mom and dad ARE away somewhere and unable to help, it’s weird that young Tony can’t go scavenge some stuff from their house, at least to borrow until he gets things of his own. As far as I know, most parents don’t confiscate the housekeys from a child when s/he moves out to a new apartment. Or maybe they do, now. But they didn’t when I was a kid.

    Adores: 0
  22. 2009 July 22
    Maureen permalink

    Why do I no longer need dvd player anything?

    Adores: 0
  23. 2009 July 28
    Davin permalink

    I feel bad for the guy. I hope he can hash it in a fanless apartment until someone gets him a few. Maybe the comic books will distract him from the stillness of the air.

    Adores: 2
  24. 2009 July 29
    Canaduck permalink

    This creeps me out hardcore. I hope that Tony is actually doing fine and has no idea what his meddling mother is doing. Ughhhh.

    Adores: 0
  25. 2009 July 31
    Quinn permalink

    Okay.. so I’m being dead honest when I say 2 things:

    1. This is the FIRST time I’ve ever been to this website. (Via: Passive Aggresive Notes)

    2. My ex husband’s name is Tony.. and he’s 24.. and he moved into his first place ‘by himself’ (He had lived with his mother previously..) within the last few months.

    Should I laugh or possibly feel bad that I may be the ‘nasty relationship’ he just got out of? 🙁

    Adores: 2
    • 2009 August 1
      drmk permalink

      1. Welcome! Make yourself at home.

      2. If your ex could be this person, I think you need to do the jig of elation — for the fact that he’s your ex, of course.

      Adores: 1
      • 2009 August 3
        Quinn permalink

        Jigs are my specialty. Thanks! ^_^

        Adores: 0

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