You're trying to sell what online?

by: heather venema
Editor-in-Chief

A virtual dumping ground. Anything you ever wanted and more things you didn’t. Turning trash into cash. The unethical garage sale. E-Bay.

Ok, so while I don’t have a foreseeable future in advertising for the online monstrosity, I do have proof that some of the weirdest things in the world are on the auction block.

First off, I’m dying to know what kind of person it takes to actually conceptualize some of these products. Item number 5629864903: a mayonnaise jar filled with 1,000 bread clips. Possible uses (verbatim from the description) are guitar picks and a raffle contest to guess the number. But be forewarned...if used as a raffle, the exact count is 1, 057 bread clips. The bidding starts at $10.

Coming up? A heart-shaped potato (5630325087), gothic rubber duckies (7191513076), and air breathed by Tom Cruise (5629376405).

E-Bay has become a cultural phenomenon, allowing people to make careers out of buying and selling other people’s stuff. I know a stay-at-home mom, who fills her minivan at garage sales every week. She drops her kid off at school by 7:30 a.m. – and school doesn’t start until 8:30.

For some, the driving principle is competition. Case in point, a cotton ball sold for $100.98. Now a man from Canton, OH is trying to top that, by selling a Q-tip. At this moment in time, the Q-tip has reached $52.00.

For those of you that don’t remember, in 2003 a man named Steve Young was ordered by e-Bay to terminate the auction of his family. After reading about the sale of a struggling town, Young decided to put his family up for sale, offering "a lifetime of platonic companionship, including invitations to family outings and holiday gatherings as well as tips on writing, gardening and cooking."

As an added incentive, Young offered to relocate his family anywhere, and have the eldest Young’s change their surname. At least he put the minimum bid at $5 million.

A copy of (5628385609) Elvis’ birth certificate, marriage license, and autopsy report? Priceless. How about tattooing your company logo on Mystermaniac’s skull? Currently it only costs $20 (5629806903).

Can you imagine what all would be auctioned without e-Bay’s imposed limits? Already the corporation has had to snuff out the sales of exes, body parts, live animals and people’s souls.

At some point, a part of me felt bad for all the innocent people being scammed by false description; however, I then realized that anyone dumb enough to bid on a jar of Tom Cruise’s air for $35 deserves it.

For now, I’m sticking to safe things: posters, DVD’s, and printer cartridges. But who knows? Maybe someday I’ll be selling my forehead too.

Oops. Gotta go. Several thousand new auctions have opened up. There might be something out there I desperately need!