7 Strange Groupon Deals

Deal-of-the-day site Groupon is considering an offer from Google for a reported $5.3 billion (plus a $700 million earnout), that would make it the search giant's most expensive acquisition ever. I've written before about why I think Google's offer is a smart one. Whether or not the deal goes through, Groupon, as one of the year's biggest success stories, will remain on our radar. For the weekend, though, we wanted to take a more lighthearted approach to the subject.

Whenever I had a free moment over the past two days, I surfed the Internet, overturning every site, to find some of the weirdest deals that Groupon has offered in the past. I had some luck, but not much. The service doesn't keep a public list anywhere -- as far as I can tell -- of previous offers, so they were difficult to dig up. Here, I present seven of the strangest I was able to find. Three bucks for a hand-drawn cat? Definitely strange. A visit to the Sex Museum? Maybe less strange, but certainly curious when you consider nearly 6,000 people signed up within hours for the coupon -- $9 off -- to see bedroom toys dating back to the founding of the Republic.

Because the site functions best when it presents coupons that will be enticing to tens of thousands of its users, it always strikes me as a little odd when it goes for the niche: salt cave treatments, inflatable bouncy gyms, etc. But the Oklahoma Championship Steak Cook-off? If I lived within 50 miles, I probably would have been there, so who am I to judge? The deal is on.

Have you ever bought a strange or unique coupon through Groupon? If so, let us know in the comments.