Whirlwind Auction

Today is a day of rest in the eye of the storm of events around here. Last night we spun everything out of control with a last minute visit to an auction.

Here is the story:

We had been following a local auction in search of paintings or such that we still want to own. Well, last night we participated in an auction for the very first time for both of us. We were there to bid on a clock. Our item was number 340 of 400 items, and as usual we were the first to arrive and our bidding number was 1.

The auction began at 7:00 pm, and things began rolling. There were really not enough bidders in the room, so most items went unsold. The auctioneer could not even give some things away, it was so bad. But he kept up his enthusiasm and his speed. I bid on some pottery and never knew whether I actually bought it. Luckily it wasn't too expensive. Then the Persian carpets came up for bidding. As we are going to leave behind here a big red one, I bid on a big blue one. Again I wasn't sure if I was the winner of the bidding, since the auctioneer raced through the whole deal. That was almost too much for my hub. At that point the whole auction hall heated up for him. I think he panicked. His whole demeanor changed. Maybe he was afraid I was going to put him on the auction block (No Chance!), but everything was going too fast for him. And for me, too. Can you imagine sitting through and bidding in a foreign language?

Finally hub got his color back in his face, and we got closer to the clock we had come for. #329 was a similar clock, and we said we would see how that went and then bid on #340. The first clock came in way cheaper than we had expected and went unsold. So we waited for "our" clock. And we got it for a reasonably cheap price! Mission accomplished!

Now the next part. Paying for whatever we actually bought!!!! We stood in the short line to the paymaster's office and giggled that we were so stupid that we didn't even know what we were going to take home. Then the big moment came. I had bought the big, heavy rug, and Hub had his clock. We paid and stuffed the treasures in our rented car and drove towards the apartment.

While lugging the too awkward and too heavy items up to the apartment we had to laugh again. Why are we doing such crazy things as this in our retirement age? Because we still can. Short and simple. TeeHee.