I went to my first auction on Saturday.

It was an estate auction that was down the road from our house and Hubby wanted to go see what they had and asked if I wanted to go. At first I wasn’t going to go. I didn’t think I would like it and since the only thing that I gather in my pockets anymore is lint, I told myself it would be a waste of time. After some persuading on Hubby’s part and one look around the yard that was waiting to be attended to, I figured, “What the hell…why not?”.

The old man that once lived at the house was a recluse. There was only a handful of people that actually talked to him a few times. I don’t think anyone really KNEW him all that well. I’ve passed his house almost everyday for 16 years and I’ve NEVER seen the man. People that live directly across the street from him never seen him. Maybe he just lived his life at night when everyone else was asleep. I don’t know. He was found beside his pond one day, face down in the dirt with a bump on his head. His death sparked some pretty wild imaginations among the ‘hood’ but in the end they (meaning the police, medical examiner) had said that he had a massive stroke and hit his head on a huge rock as he fell.

His wife and kids….(that was a shock to the hood)……….didn’t want the property so it was put up for auction on Saturday along with the contents of the house…or what I thought was the contents of the house.

Once we got there, Hubby took off in one direction while I headed straight towards the goods. I was curious to see what they had. Ok..ok…I was being nosy as hell. I’ve never seen this man and there have always been plenty of rumors (I know…I know…believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see)…BUT…..I wanted to find out if the contents gave away any clues as to what the man was like.

What I saw as far as contents of the house only made me more confused as to what type of character lived at the house. There were Persian rugs, numerous oil paintings, porcelain dolls, Avon bottle and collectors plates, a fur coat, quilts, sets of plates, glasses, fishing poles and other fishing junk, lamps of almost every shape and size, numerous chairs but none that matched any other that was there. There were women’s clothes, kids clothes, men’s clothes. There were a few toys there. There were tons of books….from the romance novel to western to self-help. A very, very nice grandfather clock. A curio cabinet with different crystal figurines, porcelain figures, plates, etc. It was just an odd assortment of stuff that. I’m not sure what I expected but it wasn’t that. Come to find out, the stuff was brought in from the outside. As far as I know, maybe the old man didn't have any contents.

Anyway, the auction got underway. Never having been to one before, I was watching how it worked and what kind of prices the stuff was going for. I had walked around before it started with nothing really jumping out at me so I didn’t bother to get a number. About halfway through the auction, I was looking around at the different stuff when my eyes fell upon a set of three park-like benches that screamed, “BUY ME, BUY ME!!!!”

So I went and got my number.

The auction took FOREVER. I guess it was because I was waiting for the benches to come up and they kept on and on with the small stuff. I was sitting on one of the very benches that I was planning on bidding on talking to a guy beside me about the different stuff that was going and the pricing. He then told me that he was only bidding on one thing.

The benches.

Well, go figure. He had just won the bid against Hubby for some other item. We continued talking…mainly about the benches and then some other guy joined in saying he was thinking about the benches too.

Wonderful…great…The only thing I wanted and I won’t end up with because someone else will out bid me. I already had my price limit in mind and wasn’t going to budge over it even by a dime.

Well…..It seems I didn’t really need to get my panties in a twist anyway.

When they pulled one of the smaller benches to the front, the auctioneer’s voice crackled in the microphone, “Who wants to start me out with a $2,000?”, I almost fell OFF my bench.

I don’t have THAT much lint in my pockets. I was thinking I could scrape enough money if I saw something that I really, really wanted that was a good price but $2000 was not in my ‘good price’ category.

Those benches could sit there and rot for all I cared but that was not the sentiment of the guy I had been talking to earlier about bidding on the benches. Once no one took the bait for the $2,000 that the auctioneer threw out, he threw out some lower numbers to get the bid started. The guy beside me was really excited when it go low enough for him and he was getting into the whole bidding war that was going on between him and another guy. When the auctioneer rattled out $175, the guy bidding stopped for a second and looked at me asking if that was for all three pieces. I hated to destroy his happiness but I had to tell him that it was for EACH piece. His grin turned straight and he looked like he had just lost his puppy. He stopped his bidding. They were sold for $200 each.

I talked to that guy for a few more minutes and then made my way back around to my original standing place. There I noticed an old dry sink, some other small cabinet type thing and an old pedal sewing machine. Three items I would be bidding on.

I missed the sewing machine bid because I was too busy waiting for fries and a drink. It sold for $22.50. Unbelievable. I got out-bid on the dry sink and the other cabinet because I wasn’t willing to scrape that much lint into a piece of furniture that I had really had no room for to begin with.

Although I didn’t get any of the stuff that I wanted, I had a blast and met some really interesting people.

I think Hubby may created a monster.