A Turquoise Star

If you've ever used eBay, you're probably familiar with their feedback rating system. You probably know that when you have a successful transaction, you're expected to leave positive feedback for the other person, and hopefully, the other person does the same for you. A positive feedback increases your rating by one. Once in a while, things don't go so well and you have the option to leave a negative feedback, which decreases the other person's rating, or a leave a neutral, which neither increases nor decreases the rating. I'm proud to tell you that since I joined eBay in 1999, I've gotten only positive feedback.

eBay recognizes their members' ratings with little colored stars. Currently my rating is 84, which means I have a blue star. When I reach the next level, at 100, I get a turquoise star. The level after that is a purple star.

Thing is, to get a purple star, you must attain a rating of 500. To put this in perspective, it's taken me seven years to reach an 84 rating. That's 12 per year. At this rate, I'll become a turquoise star in the fall of 2007. By the time I turn purple, I'll be pushing 80.

I will probably die a turquoise star.