Note: This story was written as part of a contest at TheStoryverse.com, wherein they challenged us to explain “What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever purchased off the Internet?” Miraculously, I won!
The weirdest thing I ever bought off the internet? That’s easy. The internet.
See, a few years ago, I was trying to buy a second copy of “Accidental Taxidermy for Dummies” (kerosene: it looks a lot like apple juice in low light), and I was $3 short for free shipping.
I’m a savvy guy, so I went on a hunt for items that might fit the bill. I did all my usual searches, but “spray-on”, “Malaysian massage table” and “goose” all came up empty.
On the fifth page of “encephalitis” results, I saw it: “The Internet” for $3! And I thought to myself: that hits the spot. So I added it to the order.
For the next week, I couldn’t stop wondering what it would be. Something sad, like an AOL disc sold by someone who doesn’t know the 1990s are over? Or maybe a certificate signed by Al Gore! In the end, it was far, far more sinister.
It was a single DVD-R in a black jewel case, with “Internet” hand-written in blue Sharpie. I dropped it in my computer and took a gander.
All I saw was a big list of folders. I checked the first one I recognized, “Facebook”, saw a file called “Users” inside. Remembering my friend Alexei who sold me my credit card number, I opened it up.
Sadly, it didn’t have any actual users in it, just a number. I’m not so good at math since the accident, but I could see it wasn’t a huge number, so I added a zero to the end for fun, saved it, and went looking around some more.
Anyway, the next day, I saw on the news that Facebook had a sudden spike in popularity. Like millions of new users. And I realized that the number they had on the TV was the same as what I had on my computer. Which was pretty cool.
So since then, I’ve been playing with this Internet of mine, adding users to sites I like, and getting rid of the ones I think are stupid (MSN Live, I’m looking at you).
I added users to Digg so I’d get promoted to the front page more, but they mostly just ignore me. I tried to get rich by buying stock in companies before I upped their numbers, but most of the good ones aren’t public yet. Also, the math thing.
So anyway, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever bought online. I hope you liked my post, because if I don’t win, I’m changing thestoryverse.com’s number to zero.
