30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, October 31, 2011

I'm an eBay Idiot!


Who: Me... hence the title... I'm an eBay idiot!
What: I bought an empty box of 1992 Gameday Football cards for $4.99 ($.99 + $4 shipping)
When: I picked it up a little over a week ago.
Where: Once again... it's in the title.
Why: I thought I was buying a box of 1992 Gameday Football cards.
How: I didn't take the time to read the ad closely and I got what I paid for.

Happy Halloween everyone. I'm a huge fan of this holiday for so many reasons:

A. You get to dress up in outfits you'd never consider wearing on an average day.

Let's see... my last five costumes have been a geisha girl (loved representing my culture, dressing up in drag, and freaking out the kinder kids), Nacho Libre (if I wasn't a teacher, I'd consider being a Mexican wrestler), nigiri a.k.a. sushi (nothing like dressing up as raw fish), Leonardo (he's always been my favorite TMNT, because he wears the blue bandana and sports katanas), and today I dressed up as Russell from Disney's Up. C'mon... think about it. Fuji = short, chubby, Asian guy. Russell = short, chubby, (I'm pretty sure he's) Asian boy. Besides the geisha girl costume, it was my favorite. Sadly... my friends (who dressed up as other Up characters) and I lost out to the ever so popular Angry Birds in this year's Halloween costume contest. But enough crying... let's keep wrap this up.

Here you go G... Enjoy!

B. You get to eat candy without feeling guilty.

The holiday is based on eating candy and everywhere I go, people are handing it out for free. I've probably eaten 20 Reece's Peanut Butter Cups in the past week alone. Don't worry... I'm going on a diet starting tomorrow. I had to plump up for my costume.


C. And finally... there's the whole "trick" or "treat" concept.

Give me some candy, or I'll throw eggs at your house. Awesome right? Well... I'm too old for that now... but it's the main reason Mama Fuji had the candy bowl stocked for the neighborhood kids while growing up. Which meant that I got to keep the leftovers.

Okay... back to the point of this post. When I got home from work today, I saw this nice, big package sitting in my mailbox. And I though... sweet... a nice little treat on this special holiday. But after ripping open the package and finding this:


What is it? It's a beautiful empty box... and as you can imagine, I felt a little like I had been tricked. So, I headed over to eBay to read the item description and this is what I saw:


Yep... the item was described perfectly. I just didn't bother to read it carefully, which meant that it wasn't a treat, but I wasn't tricked either. In other words, I got what I deserved.

Tonight's questions are...

What's the best costume you've ever worn for Halloween?

and

Have you ever purchased something off of eBay and realized that you didn't read the item description carefully?

I guess I should be thankful that nobody else wanted this empty box, because I set my sniping program to put a maximum bid of $6 (+ $4.00 shipping). I can't imagine how bummed I'd be if I paid $10 for an empty box.

In the end... I spent $5 to learn a lesson I should have learned years ago. Happy Halloween everyone... Sayonara!

9 comments:

The Big Kahuna said...

I enjoyed the article immensely. I enjoyed watching my NY Rangers manhandle the sharks even more....hehehehe!

Ryan G said...

I feel like I've answered the costume question too many times. I've been told I look a little like the guy who turns into/from a rat in Harry Potter (whatever his name is), so one year I may have to actually do that costume, though the reference is getting lost the more time passes. I have no favorite of what I've worn, and in fact I don't remember most of them (other than pictures of various years, and material evidence of a Robin Hood costume). I don't dress up any more, since I haven't done anything Halloween-ish in about 20 years (disappointed sigh).

I've never had the situation that you described, though I've come quite close to bidding on auctions before realizing it's a bad deal (especially sellers who use words like "lot" and "autograph" improperly in their title). I've been very close to bidding on empty boxes before.

The Lost Collector said...

Best costume for me was Dwight Schute a few years ago.

I've been an eBay idiot many times. You're not alone, Fuji.

John Bateman said...

I have bought things I did not want on ebay - I bought a Jeremy Giambi bat card thinking it was Jason - I still don't know how I missed it

sg488 said...

Happens to the best of us Fuji,I thought I was ordering the 2011 Update set ,read the ad incorrectly,and got the 1st series(which I already had )$40 down the drain.

Fuji said...

the big kahuna - congratulations on the rangers win... as a sharks fan, i don't put much stock in the regular season anymore. the key for the sharks will be to make the playoffs and get over the conference finals hump.

ryan g - a peter pettigrew costume would be pretty cool, especially to potter fans.

the lost collector - dwight is the man! he's one of my top 10 tv characters of all-time.

john bateman - does the jeremy giambi card have him pictured as an oakland athletic? if so... lmk if you're interested in trading it.

sg488 - lol... that reminds me... i've done that too.

Anonymous said...

C'mon man. No photos of Fuji in drag? What if I paid you what you lost on the ebay box? Would you post that picture then?

I've never really done Halloween costumes. My mom was super conservative when I was a kid, and now, even though I'm not against it, I just never really developed the love for Halloween. I'm more of a Thanksgiving fan. Societal-approved gluttony is more my style I think.

Fuji said...

g - there ya go buddy... free of charge... just don't plaster it across the net ;-)

Lonestarr said...

Best costume was the last year I trick-or-treated when I was 15. Dug out a great cowboy costume out the random clothes and hats in my parents' closet. It was by far the best I'd ever come up with. I'm working on a steampunk getup for if I ever get invited to a Halloween party or get the chance to go to a convention someday/