And I'll Raise That Bid .......

Vince Lombardi – the late, great former head coach of the Green Bay Packers – said it best, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Having been retired from my professional interior design job for several years now and long since out of school, somehow I managed to lose – or at least temporarily forget – my competitive edge somewhere along the way. I suppose when you’re sitting in your room all alone at home, staring at your blank computer screen waiting for inspiration, it’s just not really needed. But having said that just now, I can still sit here today allowing my mind to wander back to a time when I competed for the highest grades, or for better positions within a company, or even the choicest clients and vividly remember the adrenalin rush each and every time “I won!”

When you have a naturally competitive spirit, there’s nothing like it. I’ve never been able to casually play a game of monopoly, scrabble or even ping pong for that matter, as I tended more towards walking the fine line between celebratory behavior and downright bad sportsmanship each time I successfully spiked the ball, which inevitably infuriated my opponents to the point they all but refused to go up against me. I can’t help it …. it’s as much a part of my being as the color of my eyes.

My latest obsession with winning has manifested in the form of eBay. I know it’s been around for a while, and I – along with the rest of the world’s savvy shoppers – quickly opened up a PayPal account and began placing bids for items of interest the moment it first came onto the scene, but maybe I was too busy at the time, or failed to navigate the original site effectively, or perhaps I just couldn’t find what I was really searching for, because I quickly lost interest. However, my interest was renewed not terribly long ago when I decided to watch the “Breaking Bad” series on Netflix. On the very first episode, Skylar and Walt are in bed following his 50th birthday party and she – in typical womanly fashion – is ‘multi-tasking’ by servicing Walt in the form of a ‘hand-job’ while monitoring the bids as time ran out on the item she wished to purchase. At the last second she proffers the winning bid and she wins …. and so did Walter White for that matter …. or at least I think so. To tell you the truth I got so caught up in Skylar’s bidding that I can’t quite remember for certain. Try watching that scene with a straight face along with your parents, both aged over eighty.

At any rate since this past Saturday, I’ve been monitoring bids on a Michael Kors piece I decided I had to have. It was NWT (New With Tags for the un-indoctrinated). I carefully weighed my bid strategy in my mind, first entering a dollar amount which represented my ‘ideal’ price and that held good for four days, but as the clock ticked down to just under 1day, the bidding war began ….. What the hell! Were these people toying with my affection? I practically had it in my hands, even going so far as to ‘picture’ myself holding it, smelling the fine leather grain as I respectfully ran my fingers across the logoed closure.

Time to go to work ….. I quickly analyzed the bidding tendencies of my two main competitors, finally putting my college algebra to good use as I figured out the percentages they used to up the ante, and then I placed one final bid with a ceiling I did not intend to break through and nervously watched the time ran down …. “Like sands through the hourglass, this was a day in my life.” With my eyes glued to the computer, I watched as time ran down to three minutes, then two and one, with my finger nervously poised over the bid key just in case I caved in and decided to go just a little bit higher. Then voilà! It was mine! Strategic planning had paid off and I won! Oh I can feel the adrenalin coursing through my veins as I tap on these keys and say a silent prayer, “Please God, don’t ever place me in either Christies or Sotheby’s with a paddle in my hand.”

The victory not yet fuzzy in my memory banks, I vow not to let this new addiction get the best of me as I dare to take a quick look at Kate Spade while simultaneously wondering if eBay sponsors any 12-Step programs.