An auction tragedy – a tale of woe and antique garden urns.
The sensation of having adrenaline injected directly into your brain, in the form of the thought:
I AM GOING TO WIN.
Is how people end up broken and destitute.
I know this FOR SURE, because I bid these urns up to nearly $1,200.
BECAUSE THEY WERE MINE.
(Although, it turns out they are not.)
When I left for the auction, I told Paul that my top price was $400-ish for the pair. In reality, it was closer to $500-ish… and in extra reality, some part of myself believed that budget was irrelevant because the urns already cosmically belonged to me and it was just a matter of waiting around to collect them.
After I had been at the auction for an hour, I raised my mental bid-bar to $600… ish.
Just to be safe.
But also because myself pointed out to me that if I thought of the price on a per-urn basis, magically, they were half as expensive!
Self said— $300 per urn is ALMOST the same as $250! Just with slightly more gravitas! You could even go to $350 and still be in the ballpark!
Self also decided to ignore the 18% buyer’s fee and 6% sales tax in favor of convenience and not having to do math.
The bidding began at $100.
Cue music: Eye of the Tiger.
Things moved quickly… According to plan, the other bidders in the room dropped out around $500. But there was a problem– there was a phone bidder who apparently did not get the memo about how I was going to buy these urns for NO MORE THAN $600.
Somewhere around $700, I lost consciousness.
I began bidding in a fugue state… A blackout I can only attribute to my psyche having decided that without the urns, life was not worth living.
As I inched higher and higher— locked into mortal combat with the unknown assailant on the phone… we entered the $900’s and I had the thought – I am doing a BAD thing!
I looked around to see if anyone was coming to arrest me.
But they weren’t.
Self instructed me– GO. MORE. FASTER. MINE.
At NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS, I tried to do some quick math to figure out exactly what I was spending.
$950 + 18% buyers fee = $1,121
$1,121 + 6% sales tax = $1,188.26
The above equation is done with a calculator. Sitting at the actual auction, it was more like this: WAY MORE money than I planned to spend + ANY MORE amount of money = HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY.
Up until nearly $1,200:
I was CERTAIN I was about to win.
I was CERTAIN that the urns were MINE.
I was CERTAIN that Unknown Assailant was just about to cave.
But at some point I had to consider that my certainty was unfounded… Because actually, Unknown Assailant seemed perfectly willing to continue ad infinitum… I really have no idea WHAT I would have needed to pay to win these.
Self said – this is not about money! It is about destiny! If we do not win, the rest of life will be a slow, meaningless plod through an urn-less wasteland.
Who wants that?
Teaching me two important auction-truths and illustrating the fundamental unfairness of life:
- sometimes your own destiny walks off, hand-in-hand with someone else, while you sit on the pavement and sob.
- just because you are too poor, does not mean that the other bidder is also too poor… in fact, they may have ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD TO SPEND ON URNS THAT COSMICALLY DO NOT BELONG TO THEM and your experience is not even relevant to the situation because you are just someone who has lost control of their senses and must scurry backwards.
Then you wonder:
Why must I be the scurrier?
Why?
I have some fairly deep-seated childhood issues surrounding that question and I am pretty sure that the urns would have resolved them for me… it is unfortunate that now I will be forced to continue, unabated, my deeply flawed existence.
see the antique urn we restored
January 20, 2015 @ 10:51 am
Not even a mention of how you’d URNed those through all your hard work???
😛
January 20, 2015 @ 10:56 am
Opportunity lost or the cosmos telling you it has other plans? A dear friend was desolate when she lost out on a wrought iron / wooden bench (curb donation that as she did a legal u-turn someone else veered across traffic and snagged said bench) that she felt was destined for that perfect spot under a rose arbor but now without that bench her gorgeous garden was just blah. But then Fate showed up during a wind storm, knocked over a Serbian pine tree that demolished the arbor, the rose bushes and would have crushed the bench to smithereens. YOUR urns will appear someday when its time.
January 20, 2015 @ 10:56 am
You posts NEVER fail to make me laugh….If you are ever near Orient, NY….send an email…I have a feeling we could get into wonderful trouble together…:)
January 20, 2015 @ 10:59 am
The question is, what shade of sparkly would you have finished them in? Gold leaf? Or straight up glitter? Either way is a win!
January 20, 2015 @ 11:02 am
And such is the reason why I no longer allow myself to go to auctions: Heartbreak + Mad Potential For Overspending.
January 20, 2015 @ 11:18 am
They ARE the best urns ever. AND THEY ARE YELLOW!, the best color ever!
oxox!
-b.
PS I am NOT the caller who won your urns!
PPS Thanks for your words and your “funny” and your “you!”
January 20, 2015 @ 11:21 am
Oh, man. That is such a bummer, but I do believe, knowing you as I do, that you will find bigger and better urns for a fraction of the cost sometime in the not too distant future. Was Paul sitting next to you? Lyn would have had a heart attack if I had done that. Best to leave the guys home when out on a limb in the auction world. I used to get a rush with eBay purchases and was often out bid at the last minute by 25 cents!
Great story, pretty urns, but I know you’ll find better!
xo,
Karen
January 21, 2015 @ 1:47 pm
Almost certain Paul was not there! He would have reigned our dear VEB in around $200! No, the auction devil sinks his spiked fork into our brains when we are on our own, with no Savior to blast that evil minion into a vanishing puff of smoke!
January 20, 2015 @ 11:25 am
Put this into perspective – you saved $1,200. You can put that $1,200 + another $600, or so, toward the next pair of urns you fall in love with and blow all other bidders out of the water!!!
January 20, 2015 @ 11:37 am
Surely the universe has fancier urns waiting for you? That can be the only answer.
I’ll bet Paul needed a little lie down after hearing about this.
January 20, 2015 @ 11:38 am
Oh my goodness, I freaking love you. LOL
January 20, 2015 @ 11:45 am
The two urns don’t even match! — girlfriend…GET OVER IT! (Cue slap on the forehead ala Cher in Moonstruck!)
January 20, 2015 @ 11:47 am
OOPps…yes they do…oh well
January 20, 2015 @ 11:48 am
This story reminded me of an auction years ago where I was someone’s Unknown Assailant, as I was bidding on and intent on winning the painting that hangs over the mantel in our family room. Both of us were in the auction room, and I was unknown only because I was in the back of the room and the other bidder was in the front row and couldn’t see me. The painting was MINE, and I didn’t care how much I had to spend to get it. Fortunately for our finances, the other bidder saw the error of her ways and dropped out before the price reached the level of a mortgage payment … and I have never ONCE regretted the purchase. If you were bidding and were having doubts, it wasn’t the right set of urns and the little voice in your gut was telling you so.
January 20, 2015 @ 11:48 am
This is EXACTLY what happens to me at auctions. It’s like Crack cocaine, going to auctions. I believe I warned you about auction fever last year when you posted about how you had “progressed” from Craigslist to auctions.:) Auctions are the most fun I’ve ever had and the most addictive thing I’ve ever done. This is why I now own an antique bed frame, but the matching marble-topped bedside tables are owned by some other undeserving soul. The injustice of it! I feel your pain. You will NEVER forget those urns.
January 20, 2015 @ 11:50 am
This reads somewhat similar to all my auction experiences, so every time I go to a sale, I always preface to my husband that “everyone has WAY deeper pockets than I do.” I also get into the situation of letting some advance items go for less money, in the hopes of reserving my budget for the one thing I really want, only to have that snatched away by the richer and more powerful phoners, that have a man with truck to pick it up and deliver it at their will, and finally settling for something at the end of the sale, that I use my budget to buy, so I can feel that sitting there for six hours was not a total waste of my time. I have also felt the burn of way overbidding, and getting to a number so high that I hope I am not the winner. Be glad you did not feel the remorse of spending all of your auction budget for the next six months. My theory is “there will always be more stuff.” 🙂
January 20, 2015 @ 11:50 am
Awesome giant fancy scrolly matching urns are not that easy to find. This will now be your lifelong quest.
January 20, 2015 @ 11:53 am
This is the entire reason I cannot go to auctions anymore. I can’t handle losing that item that cosmically should belong to me. It’s devastating!
And the devastated need to stop at Dairy Queen for a consolation blizzard. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes, it just tastes like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Failure.
January 20, 2015 @ 12:42 pm
“Sprinkles are for winners”
January 21, 2015 @ 1:52 pm
Laurie, “Sprinkles are for winners”….. Lol! Flo would be so proud of you!
January 20, 2015 @ 12:30 pm
Having lost out on the urns, I would have consoled myself by bidding on and winning the campaign daybed!
January 23, 2015 @ 9:04 pm
YES! The campaign bed was what drew my eye. It’s wonderful.
I have my own Urn Tale. I once bid on a gorgeous corner cabinet that was MINE. Except it wasn’t, and I drove up the bidding so far over any conceivable budget that my DH would probably have had me committed on the spot. I lost the bidding, thankfully. It was a lovely piece, but I would have spent the rest of my life thinking about the cost every time I saw it. In the end, it wasn’t Destiny, it was Deliverance:)
January 20, 2015 @ 12:37 pm
I just had to share this post on my Facebook page today! So hilarious and utterly palpable description of the experience I have on Ebay for the last minute of every auction I enter.
January 20, 2015 @ 12:42 pm
Damn that anonymous phone bidder! Well look at it this way, you have money for something else. Maybe another fabulous mirror. Although you may be like me and are running out of places to put them.
January 20, 2015 @ 1:03 pm
The infamous “phone bidders”! It scares me every time I know there’s one of those people on the phone. I’m not good at bidding, at an auction here in Honolulu, Hawaii I told my better half during a bidding war “just bid $5K and get it over with” he gave me an immediate education– that he’s there to SAVE money and not give it away. I bet he wanted me to sleep in that morning huh? lol Love your blogs!