LOCAL WOMAN SELLS HUSBAND ON E-BAY

(Montrose) What started out as a joke has turned a tidy profit for a local woman who successfully sold her husband on E-Bay yesterday. In the first ever documented sale of a human on the internet, Susie Compost, of Dry Creek Estates, sold Herb Compost, her husband of 33 years, to a Racine, Wisconsin woman for an undisclosed sum.

According to Compost’s sister, Martha Duckworthe of Olathe, the whole thing started out quite innocently and quickly steamrolled.

“We were sitting around playing with the computer my son got for Christmas when Susie suggested we make a list of non-essential household items that we might sell on E-Bay. We had planned a trip to Las Vegas in March and would be able to use any cash we might gain from these transactions on the crap tables.”

The two women started making a list of kitchen appliances and unused furniture stored out in the garage.

“Then I thought of Herb,” said Duckworthe. “Susie had been complaining about him over the holidays and I jokingly suggested we include his name on the roster,” she smiled. “What was amazing is that she jumped on the idea.”

After about an hour an extensive list with Herb on the top was formulated.

“We thought the measure would send a message to Herb that he had better get his act together if he wanted to continue to live with Susie,” said Martha. “But the more we thought about it…maybe he would sell. Including a photo of him when he was 25 we forwarded our data to the web source and waited.”

The first day the two sold a pine coffee table and some hand-painted napkins from Branson. Then nothing the next day. By Friday, figuring the sale had run its course, they prepared to lower some prices when they got an offer on Compost’s husband as well as some glazed outdoor furniture once used in a John Wayne movie.

“We thought someone was playing games but when they agreed to the asking price on the furniture we reconsidered and began negotiating on Herb,” said Duckworthe. “After just moments the sale was completed. Arrangements were made to ship the merchandise and Herb was notified of his departure time.”

Both women told reporters that Herb just stared into the carpet.

“I think it ‘s safe to say their relationship had tempered over the years and when Susie saw that he would not protest she figured it was no real loss anyway,” said the sister.

As might be expected an anonymous busybody got wind of the livestock transaction and complained to the authorities saying that the sale of a person over the internet was quite illegal and constituted nothing more than common slavery.

By then it was too late and everyone involved seemed happy enough. The sisters could now go to Las Vegas and Herb had even wrote (the first letter in 32 years) to say he was enjoying Lake Michigan.

Hopefully these goings-on won’t set a precedent with the uncontrollable urge to sell one’s family members down the river.

“In the 21st Century we have stimuli at work not to be believed just 50 years ago,” said Armando Silte, a freelance-sociologist working in Pea Green. “Let’s face it: Humans are the renewable resource and there are lots of us to buy and sell. Talk about a brave, new world…Why would someone in their right mind want to sell a perfectly good ottoman or an antique toaster if the market in primate perishables heats up?”

– Susie Compost