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ah, so it’s an automated reply… and a not too promising one at that. I’m beginning to wonder if indeed I can trust them to take this idea seriously and not scalp it for their own use and cut me out of the deal. Can eBay be trusted to cater to the fragile ego of a self-proclaimed creative sensation? It seems it is too early to tell. This first reply doesn’t seem to bode well for the success of my quest. I need to quickly move on to phase two of the plan — though I’m not quite sure what that is exactly. I will hope that someone in the customer service department will at least get enough of a chuckle out of this to decide to circulate it around the office. Meanwhile, I’m working on getting direct contact information to start the next leg of my letter writing campaign.

Many of my friends and visitors have asked “firecracker… this seems a bit lofty, aren’t you afraid of being disappointed? what are you going to do if eBay rejects or ignores your proposal?” Well, those are valid questions, but I haven’t taken on this challenge without taking into consideration all of the possible outcomes (well, except for the one outcome where they decide to sue me and I really haven’t thought about that one too much.) I am fully prepared to understand that eBay may just not be ready for this new frontier in eLaureate history. However, I will not give up easily and I will do my best to make my case to them. Beyond that, while eBay seems to be the right choice for this idea at the moment, I’m not ruling out approaching other dot-coms or organizations with my inquiry and I do have a few in mind that I think could benefit from having a Poet Laureate to represent them. (represent!)

So… I press on, and as always, I will keep you informed of the latest developments in the quest to become Poet Laureate of eBay (or something). In the meantime, please be sure to post your comments, words of support and advice.