Need an armpit sniffer? Try tribe.net

It’s not exactly the kind of want ad you’d see in The Wall Street Journal or on a 3-by-5 card posted at the supermarket.

“I am willing to come to your home to teach all the residents the proper method of putting on a new roll of toilet paper. History will be explained. Technique will be demonstrated and all participants will have the opportunity to practice in real-life situations. All participants will be awarded with a certificate of completion and a 4-pack roll of 2-ply toilet paper. Note: Only the Roll Over method is used.”

It’s from Katherine Howard, a licensed professional counselor, and was posted recently on the OutRaGeouS job listings site, part of the tribe.net Internet community.

Oh, what a community.

On the site you can find fire- breathing ministers, graffiti artists and spell-casting witches (“get money, win love or curse enemies!”) offering their services.

The help-wanted ads have included an ad from Tinley Park, Ill., for bald head- and face-painters for a fire department charity event. There was another from a Chicago company looking for attractive women and scrawny men for topless wrestling videos. Someone else needed “a geek actor” to portray a Napoleon Dynamite type of character (“We will provide a wig, shirt, and sunglasses and you will (provide) your own jeans and tennis shoes.”).

San Francisco-based tribe.net was started about a year and a half ago, and the OutRaGeouS site debuted in late January. Howard heard about it from a friend and decided to post her ad. It was free; it was easy. And it’s not really as goofy as it might seem.

“It’s tongue-in-cheek, but at the same time there’s a real-life component to it,” said Howard, who is trained to provide individual and family psychotherapy.

“Small, everyday stresses such as empty rolls of toilet paper can cause a lot of friction in a marriage. Addressing these stresses with humor often reduces the blame game and pointing fingers at the offending mates.”

She hasn’t signed anybody up yet, but she isn’t worried. If you’ve got a toilet paper problem – and a checkbook – she’s got the time.

“I mean, if somebody wants to pay me $1,000, I’ll definitely do it and make it worth their while,” she said. “… I just need five people to do it and I’ve taken care of the children’s summer camp costs.”

The tribe.net site also includes the usual Internet community fodder – more traditional job ads, housing, reviews, community events and items for sale. Anybody can use the site, which averages about 500,000 hits a month, although some features require membership (which is free).

Wade Lagrone, tribe.net’s vice president of marketing, likens the company to a community marketplace, similar to that bulletin board at the grocery store where you can sell a car or hire a baby-sitter.

“We’re basically a way to do all that online,” he said.

A big difference between tribe.net and that store bulletin board – aside from the fact that bulletin boards seldom have listings for goose walkers or dial-a-lullaby services – is that you can learn about the people who are posting the ads or responding to them. Users are encouraged to post a personal profile. Also, tribe.net’s ads aren’t limited by space restrictions.

“On our site,” Lagrone said, “there’s plenty of space, so people can elaborate. And on top of that … many of these outrageous shops have profiles. And so that just gives you that much more confidence that this listing is real.”

Take a spin through the OutRaGeouS listings (go to www.tribe.net; it’s under “jobs”) and it’s obvious not everything there is serious. Some of the ads are there for laughs. We think. We hope.

There was one seeking a midget albino hermaphrodite to work as a pet-sitter. There’s one for a butt-hair plucker. Another is from a group called The Rainbow Connection, which describes itself as “a posse looking for a leader.”

Some seem legit – a company wants a Spanish-speaking product demonstrator, a woman offers to dress in a traditional Polish costume and work as a hostess at a Polish party or event, another woman offers a $60 how-to-taxiderm-a-mouse class.

Others, you just don’t know about.

Like the Etch-A-Sketching troubadour.

Real or not?

“I’m a professional songwriter, I tour the U.S. and my specialty is storytelling lyrics. And I’m an Etch A Sketch artist – I illustrate my songs on that little red toy. An ode to your Mom or Dad, a weird or wonderful childhood memory, a crappy job you’d like to lampoon – I can sing it and I can draw it.”

Turns out he’s real.

So is the guy who’ll clean your chimney dressed as a gargoyle. As is the company looking to hire armpit-sniffers.

“If you’d asked me a week ago, before we launched this, if somebody was gonna clean my chimney for $110 dressed as a gargoyle, I’d have said, ‘Oh, that’s a joke,’ ” Lagrone said.

“But click on his profile, and the first thing you notice is that his profile photograph is a picture of him, on top of a chimney, dressed as a gargoyle. So you’re, ‘Wow, this is real.’ … And I contacted the guy yesterday and asked how it’s going. And he said, ‘Well, I’ve actually cleaned six chimneys.’

“And if you’d asked me if somebody was gonna post an ad to pay you to come and smell men’s armpits, I would have said, ‘Oh, that’s just a bad joke from some seventh- grade boy.’

“But in fact, it’s the truth. There is a small pharmaceutical company that’s developing an organic deodorant and they need people to come by and see if it’s working.”

And that pet-sitting midget albino hermaphrodite?

“Now that one looks not real to me,” Lagrone said. “Although I did e-mail the guy because I was curious. And he claims it is.”