Three adages that I want to live by:

• “Never hesitate to say or do something kind if it will make someone feel good.” - My Mom
  Sometimes I worry about being too friendly or affectionate to people I don’t know very well, but my mom’s completely right: don’t feel embarrassed about being nice to someone. The world isn’t exactly suffering from an overabundance of kindness.
• “Weg ist weg.” (Roughly, “Gone is gone.”) - My Grandma
  Once upon a time, before I was born, my mom and dad borrowed a camera from my Grandma to use while on vacation. Unfortunately, the aforementioned camera was stolen from their car while they were in Luxembourg. My parents were afraid to tell my Grandma that her camera had been stolen, but when they finally got up the nerve, she shrugged her shoulders and nonchalantly replied, “Weg ist weg.”
  Sometimes I extend the meaning of this one to “done is done.” It’s a great “Aw, just screw it” attitude that comes in handy when you’re overthinking big projects or when you’ve been writing a term paper for a week.
• “If you can’t make it right, make it beautiful.” - My 3-D modeling classmate in college
  We had spent three days and nights in the lab, without sleeping, struggling with a formidable 3-D modeling assignment. We were becoming extremely burned out, and even our motor skills were beginning to fail. My lab partner finally looked over at me and imparted those pearls of wisdom. He was so right. You can’t always do everything perfectly, so do it beautifully instead. We put the final (beautiful) touches on our project, called it quits (weg ist weg!), and staggered to the dorm cafeteria at the ungodly hour of 5:45am to feast on our first non-vending-machine meal in three days. (Then I collapsed on my bed and slept for 16 hours straight.)

I’m not much of a gambler. When the jackpot’s high, I don’t hit 7-11 to buy Lotto tickets. I’d rather buy a Slurpee. When I went to my first casino this summer, at the ripe old age of 27, I got tired of winning pennies from the slot machine, and kept yanking on the handle until it ate up the $5.00 I was trying to burn. I needed a sense of completion, and all this DAMN WINNING was really starting to get old.

eBay, however, is a whole nother story. I only go there when something I want isn’t readily available, but hoooo-whee! does it give this sorry little life some cheap thrills. My very first eBay purchase ever was in my teens, when I inexplicably bought a book on how to vulcanize rubber (?!) for stamps. Amazingly, I was the only person on the internet to sniff out that find of the century, and it was mine for a cool three dollars.

I got burned the next few times I tried bidding, but not by vulcanized rubber. I’d find some fantastic thing, dutifully plug in my maximum bid, and check on it once a day, thrilling at my awesome winning powers! I’d make a mental note of the day I was going to win, and when I’d log in to claim my sweet victory, I’d be shocked to find out that some HOODLUM had snatched my prize, mere seconds before the auction’s end, for just a few cents more than my maximum bid. The indecency!

These formative experiences have taught me well, and now let me instruct you, dear reader, on the rules of eBay bidding:

1. Don’t bid on something until the last possible minute. It will make you feel like a jerk, but it’s the only possible way to win. If you don’t do it, someone else will do it to you!
2. Bid like a crazy person: in bizarre amounts. That way, if the current price is $1.50 and someone else tries to outbid you with $2.00, you’ll still win with $2.13.

I bought a Moleskine weekly planner last year, and I’ve been wanting another one of these highly touted, fanboy-flaunting, “legendary notebooks” of van Gogh, Matisse, and Hemingway (read: self-important, pompous) planners for this year. Dude, they’re nice! They also have quite a following. Check out Moleskinerie, the online fan club, and search Flickr for one of the 827 groups dedicated to hot Moleskine pics.

Anyway, the damned things are sold out everywhere, and I always coveted the lucky LIMITED EDITION red Moleskine my sister used last year. I found some on eBay, some of which were jacked up to crazy sums like $40. There was one, however, that only had a couple of days left to go, and was still only $10. Hmmm!

I watched the auction dutifully, set my phone to ring 5 minutes before the end, and bided my time. During the last 5 minutes, my heart began to pound. It was only $14.00! I bid $17.77 and hit refresh like a maniac. 1 minute 30 seconds left! 1 minute left! 50 seconds! 40 seconds! I was winning at $14.50, but what if someone tried to outbid me at the last POSSIBLE second? To be safe, I changed my maximum bid to $20.22. JUST IN CASE.

Below is the thrilling outcome!

Starting Price US $0.99 Feb-03-08 18:24:04 PST
Bidder 1 US $2.00 Feb-05-08 07:08:09 PST
Bidder 1 US $8.00 Feb-05-08 07:08:26 PST
Bidder 2 US $8.79 Feb-04-08 08:40:07 PST
Bidder 1 US $11.55 Feb-05-08 07:08:44 PST
Bidder 3 US $12.00 Feb-07-08 20:59:41 PST
Bidder 1 US $12.82 Feb-05-08 07:55:09 PST
Bidder 4 US $13.92 Feb-10-08 15:09:12 PST
Bidder 3 US $14.00 Feb-08-08 05:55:42 PST
Kiki US $17.77 Feb-10-08 18:22:14 PST
Bidder 5 US $20.20 Feb-10-08 18:23:51 PST
Kiki US $20.22 Feb-10-08 18:23:35 PST

Bidding Ended: Feb-10-08 18:24:04 PST

BIDDER 5 BID $20.20 SECONDS AFTER I BID $20.22! I WON AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND BY 2 CENTS!

It’s really kind of sad how hard my heart was pounding for the last 5 minutes of an auction for a weekly planner of all things. Woe to mankind if the surge of adrenaline I felt, once critical to our ancestors for fight or flight, is Homo sapien’s last feeble attempt at survival of the fittest.

That having been said, for two! measley! cents!, I’m a WINNER for the day!