Suit you, sir

March 20, 2011 4:53 PM

This listing for my urine-free wetsuit is getting a lot of unexpected attention which is nice but I'm feeling I should do something positive with all the 'f*cking energy man', so I've decided to give 90% of the money it makes to the Red Cross to aid their efforts in Japan. That sounds all 'oh look at me I'm so nice I'm giving to charity' doesn't it... yeah well p*ss off. Ebay stunt post goes badly right.
posted by Jakey (40 comments total)

Let me know when someone throws in a camper van and I'm all over it.
posted by imperium at 5:02 PM on March 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

This website is brought to you by the idiot who listed the urine-free wetsuit on eBay.
posted by inigo2 at 5:04 PM on March 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

The new website he formed to answer questions about the wetsuit is pretty amusing:

"Bookmark this page or give me your details, then I will let you know when the site is up and running. I received personal emails from a French man for 3 years. Despite me repeatedly telling him I did not like his messages, he continued to send me pictures of him performing various martial arts moves naked. I will not send you emails of this nature."
posted by ORthey at 5:05 PM on March 20, 2011 [9 favorites]

Which inigo2 so nicely linked to above.
posted by ORthey at 5:05 PM on March 20, 2011

If it's only a 95% donation to the charity, why doesn't the bidder just donate £11,000 straight to the charity and thus give them £550 more than they will get via this auction? I mean, a brand new wetsuit costs about £200 so they're not even getting a good deal on that...
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:05 PM on March 20, 2011

Not interested.
posted by UrineSoakedRube at 5:05 PM on March 20, 2011 [20 favorites]

UrineSoakedRube: "Not interested"

But he had peed in the wetsuit, you would be?
posted by bwg at 5:07 PM on March 20, 2011 [6 favorites]

If you scroll down to the updates to the description there is quite a lot of stuff that has been donated and thrown in with the original urine free wetsuit. The value surely won't match, but it probably draws more attention to it and gets someone to pay more than they would have originally paid to a charity.
posted by Phantomx at 5:08 PM on March 20, 2011

The q+a at the bottom of the e-bay page is pretty funny.
This is nice cos you can see how it snowballed from just a normal listing with odd details.
posted by memebake at 5:12 PM on March 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Agreed memebake, from the Q&A:

Q: oh my god make love to me now! your the best!
A: "You're" the best! Do you still want to make love?
posted by Fricka at 5:33 PM on March 20, 2011 [23 favorites]

I bet my teapot never sold on ebay because I didn't specify it was urine free. Damn.
posted by orme at 5:51 PM on March 20, 2011 [6 favorites]

I could see Whole Foods having a successful "Urine Free" section.....
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 6:08 PM on March 20, 2011 [5 favorites]

So eBay called me

eBay CALLS? Fuck me, that's new one. eBay must be one of the least communicative organisations on the planet.
posted by the noob at 6:18 PM on March 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

The worst roommate I ever had worked for eBay's customer service department answering the phones. I'm talking about a guy who was so stupid he got his girlfriend to sew his pants onto him for maximum tightness, and it didn't occur to him until after how he might go about using the bathroom. I also had to give him lessons on how to boil water.

so yeah, the fact that they're not the best in communicating doesn't surprise me in the least.
posted by mannequito at 6:25 PM on March 20, 2011 [5 favorites]

I am thinking the UK part is what got him the phone call, maybe eBay UK is a bit more on the ball customer wise.
posted by cavalier at 6:34 PM on March 20, 2011

sew his pants onto him

what
posted by desjardins at 6:36 PM on March 20, 2011 [8 favorites]

The whimsical, offhanded, and tongue-in-cheek tone of the listing and d_h_morgan's updates make this work for me. But then eBay starts getting worked up about the "profanity" and they . . . chill, actually let things ride.

Then a buncha surf gear companies pile on tossing in custom ear plugs, surfboards, roof racks, surfboards and suddenly I CAN SEE the kids I went to college with in SoCal and my bras in Santa Barbara (IV!), and Santa Cruz, the ones in Hawaii, Fiji, and New Zealand. They're all passing around beers, burgers, reefer and such forms of material good cheer as proof (shore) against the mighty forces that lately pounded Nippon wrong.

A rager bonfire to see through the night the land of the rising sun; a sharing gone across and way past the Pacific to the isle of piss-free wetsuits.
posted by mistersquid at 6:45 PM on March 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

No plane ticket to the UK?
posted by buzzman at 6:47 PM on March 20, 2011

i've owned a dozen wetsuits and pissed in every one of them. it's a pleasant experience, actually. one uses a wetsuit to be in the sea. you don't get out to piss.
posted by kitchenrat at 6:49 PM on March 20, 2011

I dunno about surfers, but my husband says there are two kinds of kayakers: those who pee in their wetsuits, and those who lie about it.
posted by desjardins at 6:52 PM on March 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

eBay CALLS?

I know… crazy. I believe a burning bush is involved.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:54 PM on March 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Awesome. There's something about self-deprecating humor used for a good cause that warms the cockles of my heart.
posted by zardoz at 7:00 PM on March 20, 2011

Today I learned there's a custom surfboard shop in Cornwall.
posted by Tacodog at 7:04 PM on March 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

eBay CALLS?

I used to work for eBay CS. If they're calling you, you did something VERY WRONG.
posted by monkeymike at 8:24 PM on March 20, 2011

Nicole Morgan, pro surfer and all round legend, is kindly donating one of her Quiver boards to the cause which is 5'10 by 17'7/8 by 2.

That made me laugh out loud.
posted by fshgrl at 8:38 PM on March 20, 2011

Questions and Answers

Q: I think you're amazing. Can I have your babies?
A: Thank you, but no sir you cannot as I don't have any, if you buy yourself a foot spa I'm sure you could swap it for one.


I am still unclear if the auction includes the bear and the urinal.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:38 PM on March 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

This made me so happy it got me cackling on the last SEPTA train of the night and has probably really alarmed my fellow voyagers. Brit slang plus good works plus lots of funny hits all the sweet spots in my brain.
posted by angrycat at 9:52 PM on March 20, 2011

that is pretty good.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:15 PM on March 20, 2011

I bet my teapot never sold on ebay because I didn't specify it was urine free. Damn.

Yeah, I made the mistake of taking a photo of my teapot whilst I wasn't wearing any pants, and it wasn't until much later, after the teapot had received zero bids, that I wondered what was up and finally noticed the shiny surface of the silver teapot showed a perfectly clear if slightly distorted reflection of me as I urinated all over it.
posted by tumid dahlia at 10:47 PM on March 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Ibet if you tried you could find a whole community of pissed on teapot fanatics willing to pay big.
posted by The Whelk at 11:14 PM on March 20, 2011

I wish I could say that about my wetsuit.
posted by Felex at 11:52 PM on March 20, 2011

desjardins - your husband is correct, every kayaker I know (including me) pisses in their wetsuit.

Pro-Tip: empty the boat thoroughly at the end of the day and swill with river/sea water before you lift it up to put on the roof rack. Failure to do so means that you ride in the boat on the way back home.
posted by arcticseal at 1:18 AM on March 21, 2011

OK, so he says he's never done a number one in his wetsuit. But what concerns me is that at no point does he say he's never done a number two in it.
posted by rhymer at 1:19 AM on March 21, 2011

Today I learned there's a custom surfboard shop in Cornwall.

Surfing is claimed to be worth about £70million to the Cornish economy annually so there's quite a lot of surf related economic activity like this.
posted by biffa at 6:26 AM on March 21, 2011

two kinds of kayakers: those who pee in their wetsuits, and those who lie about it.

It feels natural to pee in the ocean, not to mention it helps to maintain the biology.
posted by slipperytoast at 12:11 PM on March 21, 2011

almost 10k! 43 min left.
posted by The Whelk at 12:21 PM on March 21, 2011

Unexpectedly heartwarmingly hilarious and irreverently wonderful all at the same time. Loved this, thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 7:31 PM on March 21, 2011

It went for £8999, but:

Because the berk who won the eBay auction failed to cough up, I've now got lots of surf related gear stacked up in my garage next to the pile of leaves and dead pigeon (RIP Rob).

I want to get rid of it quickly before it begins to smell, in addition I also want to give lots of money to help out the The Red Cross in Japan like I promised.

I pondered for a long time in search of a solution and came up with:
A MASSIVE F*CKING RAFFLE

So someone bid high and then failed to pay. So its now gone outside of ebay.
posted by memebake at 5:49 PM on March 29, 2011

The bid history on ebay shows 15 or so bids over £10,000 that were all retracted or cancelled for various reasons. Thats weird too.
posted by memebake at 5:52 PM on March 29, 2011

A widely-publicised gimmicky eBay auction got bid up really high and then didn't get paid for? Wow, who'd have thought.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:47 AM on March 30, 2011