An Apology to the Etsy Customers I Ripped Off

Attention Etsy User!

I am sorry.

For a few things, really, not all of which apply to you (unless you've been driving behind me recently, or are a resident of the state of Nebraska, or are or know an elderly person, in which case look for further apology letters to come). No, this apology just relates to the crafts retail site Etsy.com and various transactions and transgressions I committed there.

An Apology to the Etsy Customers I Ripped Off — Etsy

The only website that runs on bead and stencil technologies.

Really, my apologies need to go right back to the very beginning, and how my first reaction upon hearing about Etsy was to laugh. And then how my first reaction when I heard that people used real money to buy stenciled nonsense on Etsy was to laugh balefully. And then how my second reaction when I heard that people used real money to buy stenciled nonsense on Etsy was to tent my fingers Grinch-like for a bit. Everything that followed, from the sinister chortling on to the minor atrocities, stemmed from those original sins.

Technically, as per Etsy's Terms and Conditions for vendors, I owe each of you a crocheted or glitter-pen-written letter of apology ...

... but as there are about 700 of you, that's not likely to happen, and really, asking me to get out my glitter pen again is only going to cause more pain. So for those of you dissatisfied with your purchase from my store Chunks o' Bucholz, or for those of you whose health and safety was endangered by said purchase, below please find details on specifically how sorry I am, which I've posted on my favorite comedy website, as is the ancient custom.

To the Customers Who Ordered Wurdz

This was my first foray into the world of tricking people into buying stupid crap, and I think a certain amount of amateurishness showed. The idea, providing a framed motivational saying written real fancy-like, was, I maintain, a good one. (As it should have been, seeing as I stole it from about five hundred other people.) But the motivational saying I offered in my store, "Success Is for Succeeders!" was actually just a placeholder that I totally meant to replace. That 40 of you tried to buy it really doesn't speak well to your intelligence. Refusing to let something so banal go out the door with my name on it (and having developed a pretty intense dislike for you and your syrupy sensibilities), the replacement sayings I ended up shipping were perhaps not as motivational as they could have been. "Quit While You're Behind" contained some pretty heavy editorializing on where I think you are in your life (behind). "You Make Terrible Purchasing Decisions" was better, but still a bit on the nose. "I Hate You" was just me getting lazy.

Your Cats Are Embarassed Tor You — Stockbyte/Getty

Probably my best effort.

To the Customers Who Ordered The Upcycled Surprise

This was pretty cynical, and if I hadn't made all that money from it, I would feel a bit guiltier about it. (Money can buy some small amount of happiness, it seems.) The "exciting and surprising upcycled craft sure to excite and surprise!" I promised to sell you, illustrated by this picture ...

$44 DDD — Jupiterimages/Goodshoot/Getty Images

... wasn't in fact the nice reclaimed wood table you might have anticipated. It was the bag of garbage in the background. I'm not apologizing for that, actually; reclaimed wood tables cost a hell of a lot more than $90, and sure, that's a lot to pay for a full bag of garbage (contents may have settled in transit), but in my defense, you're an idiot who deserved no better.

No, what I'm actually apologizing for is the few of you who haven't received yours yet. I can only generate a couple Upcycled Surprises a week, and even though I've tried to be more wasteful lately, tossing out lots of unused dairy and fish such, I still have a couple month backlog of orders to clear.

To the Customers Who Ordered The Nightmarecatcher

Taking a paper plate, covering it in glue, dragging it through a compost pile, then writing the date and manner of your death on the back was, I think, very much in the spirit of Etsy.

You're pretty sure I'm wrong, but privately you'll keep a close eye on developments in public transit technology.

And if I hadn't used the world's cheapest, most toxic glue to build them, I think we'd all be laughing gaily now. And not, you know, screaming at invisible bats. Basically, I'm really sorry if you found yourself taking a nap somewhere one of these bastards was still off-gasing.

And were consequently taken to a place you might not have been ready to go.

To the Customers Who Didn't Order The Hair-Brained Idea

During a glue-based production accident with the Nightmarecatcher, I ended up mailing an awful lot of my own hair to some of my customers. Interestingly, none of them complained about this. So, on the off chance that freaky hair-based fetishists had finally decided I was their new It Girl, I offered the Hair-Brained Idea, which was just a sock full of my hair.

"Hair" being a slightly broad term that I'm not going to clarify here.

But there were no takers. So I don't know. I guess I'm mainly just sorry none of you have the nerve to answer your secret desires. Answer the phone, people. That's my trimmings calling.

To the Uptight Moralists Who Sought to Have The Metasy Banned from Etsy

Buying other people's Etsy goods, gluing them all together into a heap, and then selling the whole thing back on the market at a ridiculous markup was always going to infringe on all sorts of society's moral codes.

to MO — Jack Hollingsworth/Photodisc/Hemera/Getty

The Metasy (short for Meta-Etsy) seen here doing what it does best: mockery-making.

Really I'm just sorry that society can't recognize art anymore.

To the Authorities Investigating the Amount of Toxins I Was Pretty Casually Mailing Around the Country

It turns out that (thanks to the glue-based products I was having the most success selling), for a couple days at least, in terms of sheer mind-wrecking potential, I accidentally became the biggest drug dealer in the country. So this is just a quick note of apology (my bad) to the good folks in law enforcement who had to work through their weekends to protect the country from my little caper. I hate to take you away from your families like that, and I can only imagine the horror you felt when you were exposed to the fumes and all the shorn hair clippings in my crafting layer.

"It's like the whole room just went through puberty."

And I'm also sorry that you went to all that effort without catching me. It turns out that ingesting nothing but glue and my own pubic hair gave me an increased sense of local space-time, and I was able to foresee your raid by a few minutes and make my escape. The only way I knew how.

To the Single Lucky Customer Who Didn't Order The Bucholz Express But Got It Anyway

I'm sorry for arriving on your doorstep in a cardboard box, naked but for some strategically applied glitter paint.

It wasn't a great strategy, if I'm being honest.

I'm also sorry for, in order, overpowering you with my freakish glue strength, shaving you, covering you in glitter paint, attempting to huff you, photographing you, and then selling you on Etsy as my latest objet d'art, with the proposed title ETSY! ETTTTTTTSY! I'M COMING FOR YOU.

Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and is coming for you. Join him on Facebook or Twitter to update your current address.