For Sale: My Emotional Baggage and the Toy Bins in which to Store It

I'm getting rid of some emotional baggage and decided, what better place to do it than eBay? Maybe I can get rich quick, like that mama blogger (oh, I know like she needs any more links!) with the Pokemon cards.

So, tell your friends. I have an eBay listing at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110183920066 or if you just can't lift that mouse finger to click that link, here's what I wrote:

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It's my husband's fault that I am selling these perfectly good toy bins. I know, we all have our issues with our spouses. Some of them can't manage to put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Some of them can't drive stick. Some of them (the men at least) can't remember to put the toilet seat down. My husband is a sex addict, which means his issue is that he sometimes forgets that when he married me he promised not to date other people. In his defense though, our wedding was years ago, and that is a long time to remember a few words. And to his credit, in addition to being (aside from the sex addiction) actually quite a wonderful man, he can drive stick, he will do the dishes without being asked and he is a real champ about that whole remembering-to-put-the-toilet-seat-back-down thing.

A few months back, he told me he was off to his 12 Step meeting and somehow forgot where he was headed and ended up accidentally taking another woman out to dinner instead. Now this happens sometimes with addicts -- not just sex addicts, all kinds of addicts. An addict will head out the door saying, "Bye, honey. I'm going to pick up some milk" and return several hours later, milkless and high on whatever the drug of choice happens to be.

If you ask, "Where's the milk?" you will likely be treated to a harrowing tale recounting the addict's attempt to procure milk in the face of overwhelming adversity. The tale may involve ninjas, mad cow disease, electrical outages, terrorists, and the radioactive contamination of every carton of milk and closure of every convenience store within a 100 mile radius of your home, but it will somehow be convincing. You will be berated for not having more faith. You will weep and beg forgiveness for ever having asked where the milk was, after hearing the trials and adversity your loved one has just faced. But the end result will be, there was no milk, only heroin or cocaine or alcohol or prostitutes or dog races or a little of all of the above.

I know. The rest of us don't easily confuse milk with heroin or 12 Step meetings in the church basement with romantic clandestine dinners. And then we don't make up crazy lies to cover it all up. But addicts are funny that way. And I can't emphasize enough that my husband is really is good about putting the toilet seat down.

Anyway, some days after the dinner, my husband's date decided to give him a storage unit for the kids' toys. I'm not sure why the women who date my husband are so hypnotized by his sexiness that they feel they must give him things, nor why they feel the things they give him should be gifts for his children, but this is not the first time something like this has happened. Women lavish toys upon him, and now, apparently, they also give him the bins in which to store them. A peculiar gesture, but there it is.

When my husband brought these storage bins home, saying they were from a coworker who no longer needed them, I thought, "How cool is this?!" What mom wouldn't want free storage bins in attractive primary colors? What a great organizational tool, and easy for the kids to use too!

Of course, because my husband is in recovery, the truth will out eventually. He recently came clean about this slip, and while I am sorry to part with such an attractive and functional piece of furniture, now that I know the, er, provenance of the toy bins, I'm less enthusiastic to store the kids' toys there.

That's where you, dear eBay buyer, come in. You now have the opportunity to purchase this piece. It even comes whimsically, if ironically, decorated by my daughter with a heart sticker, and (somewhat less meaningfully) with a truck sticker, as well as (poetically) with some smudgy fingerprints I haven't been able to remove. In purchasing it, you will receive a colorful and useful piece of furniture for you child's bedroom or playroom. I, on the other hand, will get to leave my husband at home, while I take myself out to dinner with cash which, in an indirect way, comes from the generosity of his date. It's my own form of sweet revenge, and wouldn't you like to be in on that -- and get toy bins too?