Congratulations! You bought something on eBay

Well, I just made my first purchase on eBay, and, boy, am I proud. I wouldn't have felt that buying something on eBay was such a big accomplishment until I got a note from eBay congratulating me.

Gosh, I can only imagine the congratulations I'd receive if I went and sold something on eBay.

Still, it take brains, drive, search technique, and a credit card to make my first purchase, so I should be proud. Not everyone has those qualities, I'm quite sure.

Alas, I have nothing to sell on eBay. All my stuff is stuff I like and/or stuff that's so crappy no one else would want it.

If I hadn't had siblings, I would probably have all kind of cool toys and games that I could sell. But nothing much survived childhood in the Rogers family - except for the children, of course. Toys? You can forget about that.

Our toys got used. Our toys got abused.

Who wanted to worry about keeping their toys pristine in their original packaging?

We wanted to play with them, which we did with a vengeance - often for purposes they were not necessarily designed for.

That Texaco gas station? The metal tray that it sat on made a really magnificent sledding device - it went quite a bit faster than a Flying Saucer, and was less susceptible to developing dents.

That Little LuLu doll? We were good little Catholics, so we never played doctor, but my sister Kathleen and I did perform amputation surgery on Lulu, cutting off her arms and legs with a pair of really sharp kitchen sheers we smuggled into bed.

Well, now that I'm a proud purchaser on eBay, I thought I'd take a little stroll through and see what I'd be worth if any of my toys had actually made it into adulthood.

My God! There's a Ginnette doll going for $149!

I really loved my Ginnette doll, but I don't think my Netty would be worth that much. She'd be more likely to be in the price range of another Ginnette doll I found. This one's got pink stains on her little body, and it's up for sale for $.99. Her eyes are also "clouded over." (A baby doll with cataracts? Sad!) My Netty would probably be worth about $.99, too. She didn't have clouded over eyes, but I did decide I wanted her to have bluer eyes, so I colored hers in with Magic Marker. Unfortunately, I colored outside the lines and got a lot of the whites of her eyes, too.

Ginette's big sister Ginny is valuable, too. There's one going for $189! My Ginny would be less valuable, I guess, since I had destroyed her original hair doing something or other to it - I guess you weren't supposed to comb it. Anyway, my mother had to order a replacement wig and she ordered braids since I wasn't a competent enough doll-mother to care for a doll with a flip.

Easy Money was one of my favorite board games. You could play upright and wholesome Monopoly at anyone's house, but you had to come to our house to play the more low-tone, raffish game of Easy Money. Instead of buying things like the Short Line Railroad, you got to buy the Kit Kat Nightclub.

If I'd hung on to The Taxi that Hurried, one of my favorite Golden Books, I might be able to get $9 for it. Although mine was probably scribbled in by one of the younger kids, so I'd be more likely to get $.82 for it.

Even if she had all her arms and legs, LuLu would only be worth about $6.95. Kath and I certainly got more than $6.95 worth of satisfaction out of cutting Little LuLu up.

Anyone remember those little baking soda frogmen that came in cereal boxes? You put a bit of baking soda in one of their feet and they did something or other when you put them in water. These frogmen couldn't have been more than an inch high? I don't care how polite and careful a child you were - how does anything that tiny survive anyone's childhood for 50 years. Yet there is one available on eBay for $.99.

Stop at once! I can't keep scrounging around eBay feeling bad for myself that I don't have any relics of my childhood to sell.

I'll have to just bask in the glow of my having accomplished an eBay purchase. I have eBay's congratulations, and my own self-congratulations to add to it.

For the record, I bought a pair of Puma RepliCat low cuts, green, 6 1/2 for my niece. They should arrive shortly.

Congratulations will be due all round at that point.