From OpinionJournal:
There’s yet another installment in the saga of thedrunkensailor and his Beanie Babies, stuffed animals purportedly left by his ex-wife. It appears the sailor may have taken some liberties with the truth when he sold the toys. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Ralph De La Cruz reports:
I eventually tracked down thedrunkensailor. In keeping with the well-recognized canon that all things bizarre must have roots in South Florida, it turns out he’s a neighbor.And get this. He’s not divorced. Happily married, in fact. No affairs.
His real name is Steve (he asked that his last name not be used because he worries he’ll be harassed by critics). Steve, 32, and wife Mary, 28, found the box of beanies when they packed to move from Coral Springs to Margate. They had picked them up over the years and really didn’t know their worth. Steve said they would have been happy to get the $10.
The story was just Steve goofing around.
“I made the story amusing for myself, more than anything else,” he said over the phone.
According to TraderList.com, Steve’s last name is Kaye. The buyer, a woman who sometimes goes by Taisha and whose real name is apparently J. O’Buck or Pat O’Buck, has relisted the collection–for which she paid $860–on eBay:
Up for sale with an opening minimum bid of $9.99 are 26 beanie babies formerly owned by a sailor’s ex-wife. Well, actually, five are teenies of five of them. I’m keeping Beanies Royal Blue Peanut, Humphrey, Web, Steg, and Britannia ’cause they don’t look too pretty with big black-marker “F’s” (FOR “FAKE”) on their derrieres. No need to elucidate about that previous ownership. A half million people around the world were directed to the auction. The “shot heard around the world” blanches compared with the “beanies seen around the world.”Please, no questions about these beanies. The information of their history was covered very well in a sailor’s late auction and there is no need to repeat it other than to say I acquired them intact. Gosh, a bid of only $9.99 for 26 beanies. Wow! What a deal! And to think they were once held in the hands of a world-famous–what’s the word? It escapes me.
The 1500+ beanies in my collection have insisted that I get rid of these interloping buggers because they smell and the rank odor of stale beer upsets their fragile tummies. I figured with all the interest in them that some of the half million readers who thought a sailor’s listing hysterical might like to have them as a trophy of sorts. Can any other beanies make the claim to have been around the world and entered into a half million homes? What a conversation piece they would be poised at the end of the bar or in a rec room. The cost of a sign proclaiming “Look What I’ve Got” and their history found in the original listing would not be expensive to have crafted. You’d be the hit of your neighborhood and you possibly could charge admission. I might even provide a photo of “the stupid one.” Darts anyone?…
I have no interest in tools or beer so whatever the beanies bring on this auction will be donated to a local animal shelter. Most animal shelters and sanctuaries have seen their donations drop to all-time low levels since 9/11.
The current bPOSTID: $34. Meanwhile, thedrunkensailor himself came up with a new money-making scheme, selling “certificates of liquid appreciation” He explains that “your offering of $1.50 will buy me a cold frosty mug of malted barley and hops at my favorite local watering hole. I will have a list with me at all times and I will toast each of you individually over time with each brewsky you buy me.”
He also says he used the proceeds from his Beanie Baby sale to buy a power saw. Just remember, Steve: Drinking and sawing don’t mix.