Tuesday, September 8, 2009

eBaying

Laptop 
Women like to shop (I'm really living up to my new header here.)  We like to get brand-name merchandise for low, low, clear-out prices. Then we can brag about how we found an eider duck down duvet being cleared out of some warehouse in Michigan and how we bought it in King Size because we will have a King Sized bed eventually.  At any rate, we're always cold so having an extra-large blanket on our bed was no bad thing.

I think I can safely say I have stopped talking about all women and am just talking about myself at this point.

I admit I don't like Craigslist as much as eBay.  I like the format of eBay much better and bidding on auctions as opposed to just emailing some stranger back and forth appeals to me.  Sunday nights you can see me counting down minutes to swoop in to win an item  (because someone told the world that sellers get the most money by having their auctions end on a Sunday night, hence almost all auctions end sometime between 4 pm and midnight CST.)

There's a fine calculation when you eBay - you want to bid at the last possible moment.  Like dismantaling a bomb in the movies.  You can't just do it right when you get there, you have to check out the timer, set your watch and come back in the final moments.  You don't want someone else who was winning the auction to get a red-alert email telling them that they have, in fact, been out-bid.  Until it's far too late for them to do anything about it, of course.  It would be idiotic for you to have handed them 1) enough time to bid again and 2) time to drive up the price.

It's an art form.  That sounds refined, doesn't it?  Quietly sipping your wine, tapping fingers gracefully across the keyboard, Bach playing in the background and a fireplace casting warmth and light across the wood-paneled room.  Yeah, right.

eBaying is Blood Sport for Women.   That's why they call them "eBay Wars" -  clear the desk, no distractions, pared done to the essentials and every minute counts until you make your move.  I have been known to wail:  "I can't believe I was outbid by 52¢!  Damn it, now I have to start all over again!"

Similarly, I've been known to yell: "In your face, bitch!  It's mine, all mine!"  (insert manical laughter) I also like to say: "In your face, bitch!" at least one more time, because there are so few opportunities in my life to utter those words.  I would say I get untold satisfaction from it, except I just told you about it. 

I also like to go over the play-by-play of my eBay ninja moves to bring extra-helpings of tedium into my friends' lives.  While they are futilely glancing at their watches and clearing their throats, I gloss over the money I saved (not much, especially after shipping to Canada) and instead focus on what's really important here: I won.  Surpringly, no one has offered to throw me a ticker tape parade for revealing such startling news.  The most I get is a lukewarm: "Good for you.  Can we go now?"

Doesn't matter.  Whoever doesn't BIN me makes me stronger.  eBaying well is the victory lunge breaking the red tape with your arms in the air.  To sweeten the deal even further, you get an automated reply that says: "congratulations, you won the item."  Seriously, how often do people congratulate you?  You have to have done something super-amazing to be congratulated.  But eBay tells you that every single time you win.  Some call it insidious marketing (auction losers) but I just call it good bidding.

With that, I will bid you (groan) a good day.