So what's the stupidest thing you ever bought on eBay and why?

I just bought a bowling ball. It was shiny and pink, and under $10. I couldn't resist, even though the shipping will cost me more than the ball did.

Gah.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Answers

One of those stupid Amidala "collector" dolls, no doubt. All I can say in my defense is that, after so many years and so much hysteria waiting for "Episode 1," I (temporarily) lost use of my better judgment.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

A Webcam.

Not only do I have no use for a Webcam, but it turned out to be garbage, virtually unusable.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

I haven't bought anything yet that I've regretted, but I do buy things that other people think are stupid. I collect Hawaiian stuff because I'm apparently obsessed with Hawaiian stuff, but really, I'm more about embracing cheesy tourist kitsch and tchotchke with lots of tiki mugs.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Ha! It's mine!

Some little scumbag tried to bid out from under me, but I got it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll? ViewItem&item=1165972883

Isn't it purty?

I think I'm done with eBay for a while though - I've got to stop looking at eBayMotors.com because I'm getting entirely too tempted with the early 60's Galaxies. Bad Martie. Bad.

Except for those Reverend video bootlegs, I'll only bid on those.

Yeah...

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Can you throw a 14 lb. ball? I think the heaviest I use is a 10 pounder. I am a wimp.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Oh yeah, I'm a burly chick - I lift 20lb freeweights every night. I was throwing a 12 when I was a kiddo, and my mom used a 15 for years. As long as the finger holes are drilled to the proper size I'm better with heavier ones.

I can't use the house balls because when the weights get up there the holes are too damned far apart and too damned big.

AND IT'S PRETTY!

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Ebay + several margaritas = a bad combination.

I bought a gallon jar full of rocks once. Really. Rose quartz and polished agates. When they arrived the jar was broken and I had to dig around n a box filled with broken glass and foam packing peanuts to extract the rocks. The rocks are now displayed in a large lead crystal bowl that sits on our dresser.

It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I recently acquired a clear plastic Kool-Aid Man pitcher. You know, the one that...well, looks like Kool-Aid Man? And it's clear, so you can see what color the Kool-Aid is...um...

Ahem. As you were.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

A horse's head. You know those metal ones that used to go on hitching posts? Yeah. I don't have a horse. I don't even have a &#*$#$! hitching post. But I have that goddamn horse's head, and it cost about thirty bucks to ship it.

Anyone want it?

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Beth, does it have a flat bottom? Use it as a door stop.

I am now currently attempting to win a bag to put said bowling ball in. Even though I probably won't see the ball for a month.

Stupid guy wants a money order... doesn't he know about PayPal?

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Mar,

I looked at bowling bags a bit ago, found tons of em, some good ones that never got bid on.

I decided not to buy one. I've been spending WAY too much money lately as it is (like most folks I guess, I tend to go out a lot more when I'm dating someone) and really want to stick to my get-out-of- debt plans from earlier this year.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Intellivision with a shitload of games. Some mailing list I was on started reminiscing and I got this rabid need to play Intellivision again, especially Pitfall and this game where you defuse a bomb and the machine keeps saying "The code, the code, figure out the code!". A bid in a lot of auctions, kept losing, ended up paying far too much for a "rebuilt" machine guaranteed to work.

Of course it did not work. It turns on, it plays, and then it randomly goes blue screen for no reason. Never at the same time, happens on every game, and the second controller doesn't work. Also, the games just aren't fun anymore. Now it's collecting dust and waiting for the dumpster rental this fall.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

David, I'm currently gunning for this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1166506716

(Remember the bad space after the ?, stupid Greenspun.)

Someone has a gorgeous plaid one up for sale, but because it's so funky looking everyone's bidding on it. I'd rather have this one, it's lovely.

*crossingfingers*

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I was looking at some of the old leather ones. I don't think any of them sold.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I bid on and won a Bic ballpoint pen for 7 cents, just because the fact that someone went to the trouble to put one up for auction cracked me up. I never got it, though.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I have successfully bid on five eBay auctions, unsuccessfully bid on several more, all for Chicken Run toys. I need no Chicken Run toys, but every so often I convince myself that I really do in fact need them, and then I sigh and whack myself in the forehead and trudge off to the post office to get a money order. I also bid on Chicken Run videos, even though I am leaving the country in two months; fortunately, I always get sniped, so I've never had to pay for my stupidity.

I have the sort of personality that obsesses about having a complete set, so it's fortunate that there's nothing I collect, because otherwise I'd be a bad, bad eBay risk.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Several years ago, on a whim, I bought penis gift wrap on ebay. It had hundreds of little cartoon phalluses (phalli?) dancing around on it and it seemed like a really witty way to wrap a gag gift. I have yet to buy a present that would be at all suitably wrapped in penis wrap. And for the record, at the time I was gift wrapping for a living at Dillard's. This may have been a cry for help.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

empty soda cans.

50 empty soda cans. From 1976.

No, I'm not kidding.

Apparently 7Up ran a promotion to coincide with the bicentennial - they put out 50 different cans - one for each state. On the back of the cans was some ASCII art so that when you got all 50 cans and stacked them together you would have a picture of Uncle Sam. My husband saw them online on ebay one night (what ever possessed him to do a search for that I have no idea) and he had tried to collect these cans as a kid and gotten all but 2 before the promotion ended. So for a mere $20 we now have 50 old dusty soda cans sitting in a box in our garage and he can feel happy that he finally has the whole set :)

- t

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

It was either the lot of "vintage" Readers' Digests or the 50 postcards from Tennessee.

Now I just limit myself to buying vintage YA novels.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Um. I once bought a video copy of "Evil Dead 2." This doesn't sound stupid. At the time it seemed very smart because ED2 was out of print and I could not find a copy anywhere. I was so happy to see one for sale on ebay and still unwrapped too.

Two days after I bought it, I found out that ED2 was back in print again (they say "in print" even though it's a videotape) and so I was buying a newly released copy that I could have bought in the store or anywhere, and somewhat cheaper. Urrrrrrgh.

And then there's the Dawn doll I bought that was missing a hand ... in the picture of all the dolls that was posted on ebay, the doll's arm was slightly behind another doll so you couldn't see her handlessness. When I wrote the seller about this, she told me that since there had been a picture of the doll on ebay and since I had plenty of opportunity to ask about it and didn't, too bad for me. After that, every time I bought a fashion doll on ebay, if I couldn't see all the arms, legs, feet, etc. I sent email asking very specific questions. Sounds dumb, but it's easy to get bitten. (Luckily most of the doll sellers on ebay got to know each other and were generally not the kind to pull stupid doll-amputee stunts.)

Wow, I'm realizing I haven't bought or sold anything from ebay in ages and ages. Probably it's best that I stay away, to ensure the stability of my checkbook balance and all.

Aside to Mar: Doesn't PayPal track how much money you receive through them, and you could be subject to taxation because of this? If I were selling on ebay I wouldn't use PayPal either, I'd just ask for checks or M.O.s like I used to do. If you're just selling a few things casually that's probably the best way to avoid the IRS and so forth.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Jette: Ah! That makes sense. Taxes are bad, which is why I make it a point to not buy anything from a California seller.

I'm just grumpy that I have to go somewheres to get a MO. That's a pain in my butt. The rest of the auctions I'm bidding on at the moment (upwards of 20, and it looks like I'll win most of 'em) are all paypal or personal check allowable.

Second in the running for stupidest item I've bought (or at least attempting to buy) on eBay:

Bettie Page cufflinks for my boyfriend's birthday. And I'm sure he'll never wear them, but I think they're keen. Almost as cool as the faux-gabardine shirt with Bettie Page buttons I still might buy.

(And I'd like to mention that since I haven't had a credit/check card or a checking account in three years I'm going a bit hog wild.)

Now I've got to run back and check in on an auction that's about to close. An autographed picture of Drew Carey in red satin PJs. Mrow.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Err, make that a red satin bathrobe... with matching cowboy boots.

Making a sexy smoochy face.

God I love that man.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Well, I don't know if it's all THAT stupid, but...

I went through an almost year-long binge of buying old magazines on ebay, specifically old Harper's and Atlantics, Fortunes and New Yorkers from the 30s and 40s, that kind of thing. I'm a big H.L. Mencken fan, so I started picking up the odd American Mercury, when one day I saw that someone had put up one from the early 60s. Now, I'm certain Mencken was dead by then, and in any case he had long ceased editing the Mercury, but I bid on it and won. Two or three weeks later it arrives, and it's practically this John Birch Society house mag, full of articles like "Castro's War on Capitalism in Cuba", "Juvenile Integrity Starts in the Home" and "School Teaching Beats working for a Living". I can imagine Barry Goldware sitting around his hotel room, reading this thing and nodding.

Anyway, I was just a little embarassed about it.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Uhh, typo...that's Barry Goldwater.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

I forgot my other stupidest purchase. Rick reminded me. I have a whole box of old cigarette ads, all in good condition and perfect for framing. They are the wonderful old ones with Rita Hayworth and others of her era extolling the health benefits of one brand of cigarettes over another. I really wanted to frame these and hang them in our kitchen ... but our kitchen, like the rest of the house, is lathe and plaster, and there is no picture rail, so we'd have to install one in order to hang these. And that's about five miles down on the to-do list, so these ads will sit in their box until we sell the house, or until we die, whichever comes first.

And they're so COOL. God.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

I have a confession to make. I have never been to ebay. I'm afraid. Am I missing out on neato cool groovy stuff, or would I be forced to buy cigarette ads and empty soda cans? Like I need *another* timesuck.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

eBay is bad. Very bad.

I just bought a talking pets.com sock puppet.

Save me!

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

It was a stupid copper bracelet that I only bid on because I'd just lost on something I really wanted, and I was casting around for something to buy. Money burning a hole in my pocket. It turned out to be a big nuisance because they would only take payment through another service like PayPal (I forget what it's called) and I had to sign up with that and pay a service charge. Normally I don't even bid if I can't pay with a check. The bracelet turned out to be okay but nothing special. At least it was cheap.

On the other hand, I buy brass hose nozzles and plumb bobs all the time, because I collect them, and some people probably think those are stupid.

I remember those 7-Up cans! My roommate collected them all in '76! I wonder if he still has them.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Beth- I can't believe you forgot the really obvious one... Everything you mentioned so far can be kept in a closet, you forgot the 3 foot 70's faux copper monstrosity of a lamp.

The funny part is you have to trip over the shipping crate for said monstrosity every time you want to use your computer.

J

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Ooh, I never saw the lamp monstrosity. Just how bad is it?

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Tight, white nurse's uniform. It's for a friend. Really, it is.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

It's bad, Mar. I forgot about it because it's been here so long that I forget about it. I think the cats might have peed on the box, too.

I really thought it was small -- the picture made it look suitable for a porch light. Instead, it's three feet wide and hideously ugly. I need to give it to the Salvos.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Hey Laura, Small world, er, internet. *I* just sold you six of those vintage young adult novels!:-) The strangest thing I've bought... a used "Happy Days" game from the 1970's for my sisters birthday. She loved it, we played it once and now it sits on the top shelf of her hall closet.

I seel books on eBay and by far the strangest "sell" was a first edition sci fi novel to a guy who felt it necessary to mail me polaroids of his bookcases, all filled with first editions of the *same book*. Six bookcases of 'em.

Diana

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Peppermint Y2K Pez. I bought a package of it, I think it costed like $3. All because my friend collects Pez, but still, $3 for a tiny package of candy that took three weeks to ship? Crazy.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

A vintage pattern for crocheted butterflies to put on hats, lampshades, gloves, etc. It was printed in the 1940s.

I thought they were cute, but everytime I've tried to make them, they turn out funny-looking.

Now the pattern just makes me mad.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001