A few days ago the New York Times ran an
article about the growing problem of counterfeit items -- jewelry, sports memorabilia and other kinds of collectibles -- being sold on eBay.
The paper published a helpful
sidebar providing tips on how to spot cheap knockoffs.
Unfortunately there was no information to help bidders determine if the
soul of a whale that died two weeks ago after swimming up the River Thames in London is the real deal.
An anonymous eBay seller from Minneapolis claims:
I was accompanying the poor whale in his last journey, and he handed his soul to me. He asked me to sell it, so I could invest the money raised in other bottlenosed whales.
At the risk of sounding like a skeptic, I would point out that not only did the seller get the whale's gender wrong (as the Reuters story notes), but I don't believe whales are in the habit of "handing" things to anyone. Flipping it to him, I might buy.
Seriously, if anyone at eBay has a conscience, never mind a soul, that ridiculous auction will be pulled before this blog post is published.
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