NEARLY made a small child cry

I learned some eBaying lessons today. Thankfully, I didn't learn them the HARD way.

I am looking for a particular set of children's books and while I was researching, I found three secondhand books and a video that Sonny Ma-Jiminy would like.

Mistake 1: I told Sonny Ma-Jiminy about them before the auction was won*.

Lesson 1: Never allow your kid to fall in love with an item until the auction is WON. By YOU.

The starting bid was $4.00 and since there were no other bids and the auction closed in 30 minutes, I decided that my maximum bid should be $4.00. After all, if a new bidder wanted to put a higher bid on in the closing seconds of the auction, then I'd just look around for something else.

Mistake 2: I wasn't really sure about whether I really wanted the item, so I let my low bid be a form of "casting lots" to see if the transaction was meant to be or not.

Lesson 2: Be sure about whether you definitely want the item or not. And if you decide you are serious, put a decent bid on.

I love the excitement of the closing stages of an auction, and I shared it with Sonny today. I explained that the minutes and seconds showed we were getting closer to the end of the auction, and that we were still winning the auction each time I refreshed the screen and our screen name was there.

Mistake 3: I got Sonny all excited about the fact that "at the moment... the books and video are OURS!!!"

Lesson 3: Just win the darn auction yourself, pay for the items, and then tell your kid that the books and video will be coming in the post.

He was hanging on to each screen refresh, and as the close of the auction drew closer I got an uneasy feeling that if a higher bid was put on in the closing seconds, I'd have one disappointed little chap. But surely nobody would bid, would they?

Refresh. 3 minutes 12 seconds left. Still ours.

Refresh. 2:34 left. Still ours.

Refresh. 1:29 left. Still ours.

Refresh. 0:52 left. Still ours

Refresh. 0:37 left. DISASTER! Another bid had been placed and we were losing this auction. Sonny burst into tears and started howling. Hm. So it turns out the $4.00 bid was a risk not worth taking. Interesting.

And now I had to protect my offspring from the stupidity of my three mistakes above. (I don't protect him from his own mistakes, but it's not fair he should be howling because of mine. My three mistakes.)

I thought as quickly as I could with my head addled from this stupid cold. What about putting a bid of $5.00 on? Better still - what about $6.00? I'm glad I did, because I'd failed to notice that the other bid was for $4.99, so $5.00 wasn't going to be good enough anyway.

Then I went cold as my stupid cordless mouse failed to register my clicks as I submitted my bid, and my computer decided to go VERY slowly. Surely we'd lost. Surely I'd made my boy sad. Surely I'd been a total eBay schmuck.

At last the page loaded, telling me that in the final eleven seconds of the auction my bid had been accepted, the auction had ended and I had been the winner. Thankfully!

Sonny Ma-Jiminy switched off the crying and switched on the celebrating. Then he got a little bit quiet and asked, "Are the other people crying now?" "Probably not," I reassured him. "They'll look at these other books -" I pointed to the seller's other items "- and they'll buy one of those.

Books and video won. Lessons learned. Another day put to bed.

* Note, I say the AUCTION is won, not the ITEM is won. I'm not one of these silly people who believes that you're getting stuff for free on eBay. So please don't comment to that effect. It just makes me groan.