How to Survive an Auction

I survived my first auction today...barely.

It all started on a melancholy note. Our wonderful neighbor, who has lived in her house for 40-plus years, had hired Don Wagner, auctioneer extraordinaire, to help lighten her load.

Take a look at what I was up against.



Intrigued, I traversed the 10 yards from my house to the neighbor's yard, where more than two dozen veteran auction-goers have already planted their lawn chairs.

I nonchalantly viewed the items to be auctioned. If this auction were a poker game, I was the one with zero "tells."

Calm, cool and collected. Smooth as silk.

That how I was as I rushed to the window where a man handed out numbers (you need a number to place bid) and asked breathlessly, "CouldIplaceapreemptivebidonthepicnictable?"

He looked at me, confused.

I repeated myself. The man said, "The auction starts at 10 a.m."

It was 8:10 a.m.

I'll cut to the chase: I got my picnic table, but it wasn't easy.

Don Wagner talked fast. That's the thing about auctioneers. They talk fast, and they interpret my frantic please-talk-slowly wave for I'll-die-if-I-don't-get-this wave.

Don kept saying, "And the lady in the back."

I stopped looking behind me after the sixth time.

My heart pounded, my T-shirt soaked with sweat. In the midst of this dogfight with some faceless person who kept upping my bid by $5, I thought, "I don't have to go to the gym, I could just go to auctions to get a great workout."

I got the picnic table. And my children will have forgo college. But that's neither here nor there.

Flushed with success, I stuck around to see who else I could beat into auction submission.

Then I saw this...

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