E-Bay Lesson #1

All week I've been trying to "win" an auction on e-bay. I'm not a big E-Bayer. In fact I've only bought two things on e-bay and I've never sold anything. But, I was bored one day and cruising around on E-Bay Motors when I came across a 1980 Subaru Brat.

My ex-husband had one of those once, back when my son was still about knee high. I remember he painted it Safety Yellow with spray paint after I had been in two (not my fault) fender benders in less than a month. The better to see me, I guess. If you don't know what Safety Yellow looks like; try to think back into the eighties when neon orange, green and yellow were the way to go for clothes. The yellow maybe matches what color that Brat was. Every morning when you went to go to work the darn thing was covered in bugs. Bugs that thought you were one giant flower. And the bees! Ugh, don't get me started.

Sorry, I digress. Where was I? Oh, E-bay. All week we were the highest bidder. Whoo hoo, I thought. What were the odds that I was going to find my son's first project car that reminded him of his dad, and find it within driving distance from us, and a reasonable price? (I was only paying half, and my son the other half.) I'm glad I told my kid not to get his hopes up. Although mine were up there a little bit too.

We didn't win. During the last hour the bidding war was on. And even with a friend pitching in another seventy-five bucks we would never had gotten it. I would never have paid the end amount anyway for what it was. It finally sold for $795. My top bid was $500. Let me put it this way. I think that either the person who won the auction is going to see the Brat in person and back out of the deal or somebody is going to get ripped off.

Hello? People? It's a '80 Brat for shits sake! And it is missing the rear jump seats, and the tailgate. According to the interior pictures, the dash, doors and steering wheel are from three different vehicles. Not to mention the funky home paint job. I had a hard time going over $400 on this.

Anyway I guess I'm just bummed that we didn't get it. My son is disappointed but that's life I guess. We'll find him something else I'm sure. It's just kinda sucky that we did get our hopes up by being the highest bidder all week only to be shot down at the last minute. I kinda feel like I was cheated.

Well, wish us luck on the next one.