NEW YORK – Bidders unable to pull the trigger on George Zimmerman’s recent six-figure artwork auction may be interested in another cultural artifact that could only be made possible by the Internet: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s kidney stones.
An eBay listing appeared Monday morning hawking three of Bezos’s kidney stones for a starting bid of only $99. The listing notes that “the stones were passed without surgery, meaning they traveled all the way through Bezos’s penile canal,” and the seller is requesting “serious collectors only!”
The billionaire Amazon founder and newly minted owner of The Washington Post was airlifted from a cruise ship in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands on New Year’s Day following a kidney stone emergency. Bezos then returned to the U.S. for treatment, but as the auction correctly states, no surgery was required.
A spokesman for Seattle-based Amazon said that Bezos is “doing just fine after a couple days of rest,” but offered no comment regarding the authenticity of the kidney stones up for auction.
In 2006, legendary actor William Shatner turned pain into gain by selling his kidney stone for $25,000, with the money going to a housing charity.
Bezos’s protein pockets are unlikely to garner levels of devotion to rival Shatner’s, but bidders can feel good knowing that 25% of the final sale price will support Blind Cat Rescue & Sanctuary, Inc.
