All my life for sale

We have all been there. Sitting in your college dorm room, looking for change in the creases of the futon, and wishing that all of the things in your room could simply be sold online, even if all you could get for it would be enough scratch for one more forty of Old Milwaukee.

But is was John D. Freyer who put all of our crazy thoughts into action and put his entire life on sale. You see, it was Freyer who decided to see if he could post all of his earthly possessions, and even some non possessions, on Ebay.com to sell to those willing to purchase “his life.”

In “All my Life for Sale” Freyer comes up with an idea that maybe it was a good time in his life to sell everything that he had accumulated over the years. So Freyer decided to do a quasi-sociological study on whether or not the “garbage” that he had would be deemed purchasable by anyone over the Internet.

The pages of this book are lined with different photos and snip-its of the items that he sold on Ebay. Some of the items are your every day household items and then there are those items that are more of the obscure and collectible nature.

So you might wonder what sort of items could possibly be sold on Ebay that are somewhat out of the ordinary. Or perhaps some ordinary items that you cannot believe would actually sell on Ebay would interest you more.

Consider selling ice cube trays. Now one might think that buying an ice cube tray can be completed at Target, but someone in New York City was willing to pay $3.01 for a pair of ice cube trays. And then there is the can of Plumrose Danish Ham that always seems to collect dust in the back of our cabinets. Well, on Ebay Freyer was able to fetch a cool $2.50 from a happy buyer in Homewood, Illinois. Amazingly, a young lady in Clinton, New York was willing to drop $6.50 for a bag of 32 assorted spoons.

Some things sold carried with them a higher quality of being considered a collectible purchase. For instance, the record “How to Keep Your Husband Happy” was sold to a bidder in Pella, Iowa for $7.00. And then there is an ashtray from the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas that was sold to Phil, a professional wrestler from Staten Island, New York for $31.00.

Freyer does not simply sell his possessions online. Rather, he decides that he should also go and visit some of the people that purchased his items. He gives updates of how the items are being used by their new owners and tells about how the lives of his buyers has changed since receiving their purchases. One great update is when Freyer follows up with a woman in Portland, Maine who bought a saltshaker from Freyer. The amazing part is that she still is using the same salt that came with the saltshaker in the mail from Freyer.

But not only is it material possessions that Freyer decides to sell on Ebay. Rather, he decides to see if people are willing to also purchase “services” from someone at an online auction. For instance, Freyer decides to sell the right to be John Freyer at his birthday party to be held at his friend’s house. Freyer would be present, but the winning bidder would be able to hang out with Freyer’s friends as if he was John Freyer himself. For a reasonable $1.25, the winning bidder was Freyer for a night. Another good sale was the right to have a drink with Freyer’s friend Shari DeGraw. One creepy bidder, in my humble opinion, who would basically do anything to obtain a date, dropped $52.00 to land this Ebay auction.

The end of the book is also filled with email correspondence from some of the people who had purchased some of the items from Freyer. It is truly amazing to read the rationalizations that people are willing to give for spending some of their money on ridiculous auction items.

The writing in the book is rather simplistic as the book is more focused on the humor of the entire situation more so than winning a Pulitzer Prize. The book is not going to really tell you a story, rather, it is meant to offer small little glimpses into the sociological money building that Freyer has attempted in this book.

“All my Life for Sale” is a humorous account of the money that is available to make and the money that people are willing to spend at online auctions on Ebay. Freyer is intent on showing the humor around the Ebay buzz and does so nicely in this book. “All my Life for Sale” is a great coffee table book that will give guests a momentary chuckle and is a book that you might go back to in downtimes.

“All my Life for Sale” is published by Bloomsbury and costs $19.95.