For the last eleven-years, since I moved to south-eastern PA, one of my favorite things to do is go to a local auction house with my Aunt Joan. There is a small kitchen there and we usually get a bowl of soup or a sandwich, and then we walk around and poke through the tables stacked with pictures, boxes of pots and pans, costume jewelry - you name it, it's probably been through the auction house.
I love listening to the cadence of the auctioneer as he rattles on at a hundred-miles-an-hour, always scanning the room and upping the bid with each raise of a finger or nod of a head from the audience sitting in folding chairs in front of him. It's at these moments that I get completely paranoid that my nose is going to itch and I'll have to scratch it, and then the auctioneer will think I just bid on something - probably something really expensive or really horrible, or both.
Although I enjoy observing all this, I am a big chicken about making a bid myself. There is an entirely different language going on in that room, so while I like being on the outside taking it all in -- I'm actually intimidated as heck about jumping in myself.
But, now that the weather is turning colder and soon there won't be yard sales and church sales to plunder, I am going to have to put on my big girl panties (one of my husband's favorite expressions when he thinks I need to suck it up), grab my piece of paper with the number on it and raise my hand when something I want to bid on turns up. I just have to hope I understand the auctioneer enough to bid on the right thing and not pay three times what I thought.
So stay tuned, in a few weeks they will have another auction and I am determined to register for a number and pay complete attention to what the auctioneer is saying, and I will raise my hand high...or scratch my nose and end up with a $200 used-Flowbee, one or the other.
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