And the Devil Laughed (Spring)

Something recently happened to me that was certainly a qualifier for Stupid Thing of the Week, but the more I thought about it, the more head-shaking it got. Thankfully, it's not nearly as Holocaust-level as MEET THE SPARTANS being a hit, but I'm going to cite it as my second post calling attention to the devil having a laugh.

I bid on things from time to time on eBay--as should any geek worth his salt--but I suppose I'm not always as detail-oriented as ought to be.* I'll try in the future not to let it happen again, but I placed my bid and went about my business.

A day or two later, I got the requisite email telling me I'd won the item, but when I checked the auction out, it sold for a heck of a lot more than I had intended on paying. I did the math in my head and figured my max bid had probably been $13.00, or maybe the extra-lucky $13.13, but there I was, the high bidder, at way over that.

So, I consulted my sneakie we-bid-so-you-don't-have-to site, and to my, well, displeasure, I saw that it had entered my maximum bid as . . . wait for it . . . $1313.00. Yeah, just about a thousand dollars over my max bid.

I think somebody told me what my options were in a situation like this, but it was hard to hear them over the Satanic laughter echoing off my walls.

Rish "Big Spender" Outfield

*Another example was a pretty-damn-close-to-fraudulent listing I bid on and won about a month ago. When the item arrived, I didn't even know what auction it had been from, but I figured it out soon enough. I had thought I was bidding on something other than what I received . . . but sure enough, in the item's description, they stated that the item wasn't the one in the accompanying photo, but was very much like it. Arrrgh.