From the Utterly-Useless-Stuff Dept

I love the classified ads. Among the hundreds of hopefuls extolling their “gorgette prints”, you have benefactors offering relief for those “tensed and depressed by heavy pressure of creditors”. “Survical body massage by male to male” competes with Tanisha, who will “service only elite family member”, and others who will “hell both body and soul”, should you be in need of helling by “beautiful m/f masseses”.

Tender Notices (don’t they make business deals sound, well, so sensitive, so sweet, so touching?) rest cheek by jowl alongside appeals by the Bathinda Municipal Corporation to animal welfare organisations, who are informed: “…to control problem of Stray Cattles in Bathinda a Cattle Pond has been set up. A large number of unclaimed cattles are available. In case any NGO is willing to take cattles they may write to us.”

But this one, found in The Hindustan Times, really made my day.

It’s filed under Business, by the Jammu & Kashmir Industries Ltd, Old Sectt, Srinagar:

“REGARDING LEASING OUT OF THE SHODDY PROJECT: J&K Industries Ltd intends to lease-out its Shoddy Project…on an as-is-where-is basis.” No wonder they’re leasing it out, I said to myself, if it really was, as the ad goes on to state, a Shoddy Plant as well as a Shoddy Project.

Then I found out what Shoddy really means.