Miles of candy coloured equines

Er, I’ve developed a problem.

No, it’s not with The Sims. Again.

It’s eBay.

I know what you’re all thinking. ‘But eBay’s been around forever! How could you have only developed a problem now?!’ Ah, now you see, that’s because I’ve rarely used it until now. For a very long time, Paypal didn’t think I was a real person, and I was way too lazy to actually prove to them that I actually exist in meatspace. Plus, Amazon exists, so I could buy stuff off there. I’ve even bought weedkiller from it, for God’s sake.

The thing is, I’ve got into the customisation scene, ponies, to be exact, and I tried selling them on Etsy but it’s useless. In the end, I was motivated to actually do something about the Paypal snafu and start selling on eBay instead.

This was my first mistake.

I initially sold a couple of customs on there very successfully. Buoyed by this turn of events, I started listing more. And more. I’ve spent an unneccesary amount of time in Post Offices as of late (did you know they have self serve parcel machines now?!). Once I’d sold a few, I realised I was running out of ‘bait’ ponies to decorate and sell off.

I started searching for ponies for sale.

Let me tell you something, there are tons of ponies on eBay. Acres of them. Miles of candy coloured equines, as far as the eye can see. I spent hours trawling through them, sorting the obviously fake ponies, yelling ‘You clearly bought that in a pound shop!’ at the screen. Staring at the rare ones that go for silly amounts of money, drooling. Then, I discovered the ‘watch’ button.



Every time I saw a pony I liked the look of, I hit ‘watch’. Soon, I had a ridiculous amount of plastic 80’s toys sat in my watch list, tormenting me. I even bid on a couple before realising I really didn’t want them, but luckily I was outbid. Dodged a bullet there. After a brutal deletion session, I still had a pile of ponies, crying ‘buy me! Buuuuuyy meeeee!’. Oh dear. In the end, I grabbed about four different lots, bagging myself a bunch of 12 ponies for the princely sum of £12. Bargain.

It was even better when I noticed one of them was a rare pony. It’s called ‘Silver Rain’, and it’s ugly as sin, but rather sought after. It seemed a shame to chop it up as bait, so I tidied up it’s hair and whacked it online. Within an hour, it had gained a bid and a good fistful of watchers. Not bad for something that came to me packaged in a Bulmers box (yes, seriously).

Now I’m scouring the house for things I can sell. I have a box full of tat I’m going to put up tonight, now I’ve lovingly photographed all of it. I spend ages staring at ‘My eBay’, watching who’s bid on my stuff, willing to spend more, damnit! I have a habit to support! It has, in short, become a problem.

Are there groups you can join? eBayer’s Anonymous? 12 step programs? If not, I’m going to end up on the street, conducting fake auctions by waving around a homemade gavel.

Send help. And ponies.