Friday, November 14, 2008

Scientific study- will a cranky ad on ebay sell?

I've been in a somewhat weird mood lately. Being back at work is a bit stressful as there have been some high pressure situations that I have been dealing with lately. The weather certainly isn't helping with all the rain and gloomy, cloudy days. So, when my wife reminded me that I needed to put up an Ebay ad for a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine set and tracks to help clear up needed space I knew I could no longer put it off or else she's kick me out of the house. As a result I ended up putting a rather sardonic and almost nasty ad. The ad is scheduled to start at 9pm tonight so I'm not sure if you can read it until then. Thus, the following is the ad transcript:

Okay, so my kids are too old for this Thomas the Tank Engine stuff and I really don't want it in my house anymore. It's a big bucket of train tracks, scenery pieces, a mountain and tunnel, some bridge pieces and a bunch of trains with smiley faces on them. What you see in the picture is what you get PLUS you'll get even more than what's pictured. What can I say, I guess their mother went a bit overboard one Christmas or we told too many people that our kids liked Thomas and we ended up with all of this stuff. Perhaps I should say that our children are big fans of precious stones and metals this holiday season?

So we're clear- this set is NOT for your avid collector. It's been played with by toddlers for starters, the stuff is clean but I can't say it's in mint condition cause I know how you Thomas the Tank nerds get in a tizzy over small imperfections. Also, the tracks are mostly made by that other company that makes the compatible/rip-off knock-offs tracks, but it works- right? So who cares if it's worth anything? Let your kids play instead of spoiling them with rare and valuable collector pieces and "gotta have them" trains. They're 3-6 years for cripe's sake!!

Please don't send me an email asking me which character trains I have. The truth is that I have no clue. I found Thomas to be almost as inane and insipid as those furry magical farting creatures called, Boo-Bah. If you press me, I'll probably just make up names like "Rocco the Union Worker Tank" who won't carry any payloads until he's guaranteed overtime and a half plus 2 extra weeks of vacation or "Benny the Surly Caboose" who's been put away in storage at the station for sexual harassment of Sassy Sally the Streamline Train. (And that's when I'm in a good mood!) Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the anthropomorphism of inanimate objects as they can make apt metaphors for the ills of society. It's just that smiley, happy trains depress me. It may have to do with the fact that I believe that the railroads were the harbinger of the large corporate monopolies that rule our lives with such a heavy fist and suppress the middle class- but I digress .

There's no reserve, shipping will cost $19.95 and I will ship by UPS ground. That means no HI, AK or US Territories like Guam unless you're willing to fork some extra scratch for me to send it by US Mail. That also means you need to give me a street address and not a PO box. You'd be surprised at how many num-nuts don't read the instructions and still attempt to give me PO Boxes or ask me dumb questions like, "How much is shipping?".

Good luck with your bidding- I truly hope the highest bidder wins.
Should be interesting to see if cranky sells. We'll see by next week....

3 comments:

sermopoeticus said...

This is the most brilliant piece of ebay advertising bar none. I now want a Rocco the Union Worker Tank.
Actually, I might bid on it. Then I'll bitch and moan and threaten negative feedback, but won't come through.

Anonymous said...

What the hell Brian! If this doesn't sell your out or I will relinquish your poker privledges. It is a good thing I am taking an online class or I would cancel the cable internet to save money.

Mr. Odney said...

I love that your e-bay name is brianbignfun. It sounds like you're into a whole different line of internet activity.