With all the marginal items on eBay that people bid top dollar for, you’d think it would be easy to sell a motorized recliner driven by a drunk who gained national attention.

Turns out it is, and isn’t. Which is what happens when you use a brand name carelessly.

Earlier this week the police department of Proctor, near Duluth, was hours away from ending its five-day eBay auction on the chair when the La-Z-Boy people came calling.

It seems Police Chief Walter Wobig had innocently described the recliner as a La-Z-Boy on eBay. In American lexicon, La-Z-Boy has become a generically synonymous word for any recliner chair.

But like Kleenex, Dumpster and Laundromat, it is a brand name, and corporate trademark attorneys are zealous about protecting them from unauthorized use. And misuse.

Journalists have long known that if they want to get a letter from lawyer pronto, all they need do is write kleenex — lower case — in an article.

Chief Wobig, who was getting excited about an impending large payday, was deflated after hearing from La-Z-Boy.

The top bid for that headlighted, cupholdered, stereo-equipped motorized drunkmobile was $43,500 when it was yanked off eBay. The 2,800-population town could have used that kind of dough.

(That people can be so blithely rich as to pay that much for a chair powered by a lawn mower engine is a topic for another day.)

Wobig, duly educated on the basics of trademark infringement, had to re-list the chair on the Web site and start the bid process all over again.

The second go-round didn’t fare as well, with the winning bid topping out at $10,999, representing a $30,000-plus “loss” to the city.

All this arose because one Dennis Anderson decided to go a-drinkin’ on a summer day, got behind the “wheel” of his chair and crashed into a parked car.

The police put the chair up for auction after Anderson pleaded guilty Oct. 20 to drunken driving.

Wobig said the chair has transmission issues — it balks getting into gear — but otherwise appears to be a fine conveyance for those who enjoy ambulatory furniture capable of going bump in the night.

Actually, he just wants to get this circus over with — and get some people off his back. He said some folks have taken him to task for taking the man’s chair away.