Oh eBay, purveyor of memories that can cause a dignified mid-thirties banking executive to gleefully shell out $300 for an original Darth Vader figurine carrying-case in mint condition. With your intoxicating blend of pure crap and sublime memorabilia I have fallen into your trap many, many times and come away with back issues of Martha Stewart’s Living magazine, huge lots of early eighties teen fiction and a New Kids on the Block CD signed by Donnie Wahlberg himself.
Our relationship has always been filled with exquisite highs and lows. Remember the time I was in a bidding war over that Esprit tote bag circa 1986 and lost it in the last second due to a secret snipe bid? I remember just sitting there, staring at my email in-box where your cold, unforgiving notice that I had been outbid lay. I was crushed by your hardness. I thought that we had been in it together, that we were a team, but you disappointed me in the end.
I deleted the email and, in a way, I deleted you too. I went on with my life, going to thrift stores, garage sales, and online vintage retailers all trying to forget you and your seductive teasing of Saved by the Bell t-shirts. For days I wanted to insert your web address every time I logged onto the internet but I would stop myself right before my fingers traveled to the E button. No, I thought, I shouldn’t, it would look too desperate. Instead I would Google items I knew would show up with eBay listings: Slap Bracelets, a Bon Jovi “Slippery When Wet” headband, Tyvek jackets. I would read the listings, looking for your tag at the end, just so that I could be near you and your fabulous inventory.
After a week you came back to me. An email telling me that I needed to leave feedback for a recently purchased item. Oh glorious eBay, you did miss me! I logged on immediately and gave the seller high praise, and then I went to look for a Snoopy shaved ice maker and an all metal Easy-bake oven. Our love was again restored and, in the case of the oven, slightly Salmonella-tainted as well.
We have been together for so long, through so many of my insane crazes. (How many copies does one need of Richard Braughtigan’s Beat novel “In Watermelon Sugar” anyway?) You have been there through my Sweet Valley High obsession, my need to own every copy of Mary Englebright’s now defunct Home Companion magazine, and my compulsion for plastic charms shaped like baby fetuses.
But now I am starting feel that our relationship is all one sided.
Sure you write every now and then reminding me of the incredible holiday bargains I can procure or items similar to those I have bid on that I might like, but have you ever asked about me? Not once have you ever wanted to talk after I confirmed a bid. Nor have you ever held my hand after I lost an item I didn’t really want in the first place, but now that I can’t have it, cannot see myself living without. During those dark nights when I am up at 3:00am waiting for the auction to end on a Star Trek mug with the heat activated transporter image where Kirk, Spock, and Bones disappear when I make tea, and I am alone, where are you? As soon as I win a bid you disappear and leave me with Paypal to take care of all the details. It feels like when it’s time to commit you simply cannot handle it and I have to deal with everything myself. This is not how adults act, eBay.
I know I am not the only one you are seeing, but I always thought we had something special. There was a time when we first started to see one another when we were both excited by the prospect of this relationship. Remember, I had that old Dell desktop computer and dial-up, and you were the new kid on the block (no, not Donnie). At first I was scared to actually buy anything. I had been told that you might have hung around the wrong crowd, the kind that would take your credit card number and steal your information, rendering you unable to buy a house or sign up for a Barnes and Nobel discount card. That wrong-side-of-the-tracks appeal did nothing but draw me closer and made you even more attractive to me. You seduced me with your low starting bids and before I knew it, you had me taking out my wallet and entering in my security code. The first time hurt, eBay, but you were gentle, letting me wade through the muck until I found a 1950’s pink ice crusher for my bar. When I was ready, I entered my bid then confirmed it. You congratulated me and within a week it arrived at my home, beautiful and exactly as advertised. You told me it got better the more I bid, and you were right – it did. Together we bid two, maybe three times a week on everything, until both my bank account and my soul was spent.
But now it feels old and as cheap as a slightly-worn lot of Beanie Babies.
I have to admit that I no longer have the same excitement for you as I once did. Sometimes I even find myself going over to Etsy for a change of scenery and some flirtations with hand-knit Vulva key chains, just to get that feeling back. Maybe it’s my fault or maybe it’s because most of your items have a “Buy It Now” button that doesn’t give me a thrill, but I think that maybe we should just be friends and move on. I’m sorry, I really am, but I think it’s for the best.
Please don’t cry. It was a great ride, almost a decade, really. You outlasted most of my fads, so you should feel good about yourself. I’ll always think fondly of you whenever I buy something online.
Don’t say that. Killing yourself won’t bring me back. You have so much to live for. Think of all those people who are desperately searching for a Punky Brewster doll in good condition. It just isn’t worth sabotaging your mainframe over me.
What?
You say that you found a first edition of “Go Ask Alice” with no bids, and it ends in twenty minutes…okay eBay…okay, we’ll give it another try.
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