The Auction

Mark and I sent the dogs to the boarding kennel for the day on Saturday and headed out of town to go to an auction we'd heard about. We were hoping to score a good deal on a lawn mower, as the auction was advertising home and garden-type stuff.


We stopped on the way to pick up our friends Tanya and Josh, who were coming with us. As I knocked on the door to their house I saw a figure in the window waving us in. We entered and saw Josh at the top of the stairs with his puppy Maya beside him. Without greeting us or even looking our way, he said in a very determined tone of voice:

"Don't look at 'er! Do not talk to 'er! She is being bad! No, Maya, stay!"

His Quebecois French accent was much thicker than usual, and I think the battle with the puppy had something to do with it. I was happy to see him being so firm with her - she was a first dog for him and an awfully cute little thing. Sometimes a dog has the ability to take control away from an otherwise intelligent person and start making their own rules. Not in this case though!

Mark and I stood in the entryway and concentrated on ignoring the little fluffball. Josh quickly won the battle of wills and in another moment we were all out the door and off to the auction.

When we entered the firehall where the auction was to take place, I was immediately surprised at the sheer number of people milling around. Everyone was packed in like sardines, squirming past each other to get a look at the lots before the auction started.

There was a lot of stuff - one half of the hall was devoted to tools and hardware, and the other half had household things like blenders, microwaves, rugs, and such.

Josh tracked down two lawn mowers that looked pretty decent, so we knew we would be making some bids. I bought a listing of all the items up for auction and saw that there were a number of blenders available. We don't have a blender yet, and I immediately showed Mark.

"We have an extra one. Don't buy a blender here", said our friend Tanya.

Cool!

Mark asked me if there were any push-mowers on the list, and we got into a discussion (for probably the twentieth time) about whether a push mower would be practical for our large-ish lawn. I say no, but Mark says yes.

"Don't buy one of those. I have one but don't like it. You can have it." said Josh.

Score! Again!

The same thing happened with the electric weed-wackers that were on the auction block - Josh didn't like the electric kind and had bought a gas replacement, so we had claimed yet another useful cast-off.

The auction began promptly at 10am. Item #1 was an electric drill or something boring like that.

"DOIHAVEFORTYDOLLARSFORTYDOLLARSFORTYDOLLARS, DOIHEAR THIRTYDOLLARSTHIRTYDOLLARSWEHAVE THIRTY ISTHERETHRITYFIVE, THIRTY-THIRTYFIVE, THIRTY-THIRTYFIVE WEHAVE THIRTYFIVE FORTY FORTY FORTYFIVE DOIHEARFIFTYFORTYFIVEFIFTY--"

Tanya and I looked at each other, mortified at the utter cacaphony issuing from the speakers. At one point I swear the guy started yodelling.

Mark made a bid on and won a big sturdy-looking wrecking bar. We all looked at the list of items after that and decided we weren't interested in anything that was coming up soon. We escaped to a nearby cafe for some peace and quiet, and that set the tempo for the rest of the day.

We went back for a bit, and then hit the local building supply store where Mark bought some power tools.

Then we went back to the auction for a bit, bid on a few things that none of us won, and then went out for lunch.

Then we went back to the auction and won a lawn mower, which was the main goal of the day for us.

Then we escaped again and went grocery shopping together. It was now about 3pm, and the auctioneer was on lot #400 of over 600 items. I couldn't believe he was still standing upright - all he did was scream out numbers about ten times faster than the average human at a non-stop pace, and he had been doing it for five hours now.

We could hardly stand to be in the same room as him for more than five minutes.

We eventually said goodbye to our friends and went home with our prizes. The dogs had had a wonderful day at the kennel, and stinkin' Oliver seems to have charmed the owners. He gave them some final timid kisses as we left the building - manipulative little shrimp.