Addicted to eBay, Nathan Wright realized that when looked around his home, he viewed his possessions as possible auction items. After he had sold his computer monitor and other household wares through eBay, he thought about something he and his friends had only joked about.

What if he sold his soul?

“It was something my friends and I had joked about in passing,” Wright said. “I thought about it and said, `Why not?’ “

Wright, a 1999 ISU graduate in fine arts, packaged his soul in a small glass jar and put it up for auction on eBay May 15. The auction ran on eBay until Tuesday and reached a high bid of $26. The soul was then pulled from eBay for violating the site’s guidelines, Wright said.

Offering a soul for sale was “in violation of eBay’s policies,” according to an e-mail Wright received from eBay management.

“eBay does not allow listings that are intended as jokes, or which feature items that are not for sale,” the e-mail said.

An earlier attempt to sell a soul on eBay in February of 2001, was also yanked from the site before the auction ended. The auction reached a high bid of $400 before it was taken down.

Wright said he felt his auction shouldn’t have been pulled because he was “not joking” and because his soul came in a tangible container.

After eBay removed the item from their site, Wright turned to another popular online auction service to offer his soul to a willing buyer.

“Just to stick it to the man, I put it up for auction on the Yahoo auction site,” Wright said.

The Yahoo auction, named “My Soul (in a small jar)” had a minimum $26 opening bid and was scheduled to end Thursday at 4:35 p.m.

Bidders also had an option of buying Wright’s soul outright for $50. At press time, no one had submitted any bids.

Wright said several eBay bidders had contacted him to try to get a better price.

“I had a guy from New Zealand e-mail [me] and he wanted to haggle over the shipping and handling,” Wright said. “He said he was going to try to sell it to the [New Zealand] prime minister.”

Wright, a Web designer at a West Des Moines advertising firm, Meyocks & Priebe, hopes not only to make a little extra cash, but also to garner publicity for his personal Web site, www.monkeycube.com.

Wright started the site in February of 2000 because of his “need to write.”

“I started doing it for my family and friends, and it just kept growing,” he said.

The Web site, billed as “the underground community for screeching monkeys,” now has over 400 subscribers, Wright said.

“I write everything on it and control all the content,” he said.

Wright’s site features news, interviews, a mailing list, quizzes and features such as a “couch tracker” that follows the history of an ugly 1970s-era couch. Wright’s personal account of the auction can also be found online.