Ebay, here I come!

This Saturday I spent the day volunteering at a silent auction/classical concert charity event held that night for a 4 year old girl I know that desperately needs a kidney transplant. I helped out with organizing the donations prior to the event and also in setting up and running the silent auction during the event.

Now, for all y'all who don't know, a "silent auction" is an auction in which all the items are laid out on tables with bid sheets next to them. You bid by writing down the amount you'd like to bid on the sheet along with your bidder number (as opposed to your name ...... this keeps the bidding anonymous). During the auction you may see that someone has come along and outbid you on an item and you have the opportunity to keep rebidding ..... up until the auction closes.

So originally we, "The Donation Organizing Committee", decided that the minimum starting bid on items would be set at 40% of the suggested retail value (which was given to us by the donor of the item). However, during setup, some of those numbers were rethought and I went around slashing prices, to better ensure that everything was auctioned off.

I did the same thing during the auction. If I noticed that an item wasn't getting any bids, I'd slash the starting minimum bid even lower in the hopes that the lower price would entice someone to start the bidding.

This seemed to work very well. Not only would someone bid on the item, but then generally others would start bidding on it as well.

Towards the end of the auction, there were maybe two items which didn't have any bids at all. One of the items was a bronze statue from India. The suggested market value was $375 because it was a one-of-a-kinda "lost wax" type of statue. The other item I believe was a month's worth of Aikido lessons for a child.

Being that my buying the Aikido lessons was pointless, what with no children and all, I thought maybe I could start the bidding on the statue. But I was torn between thinking it was ugly and thinking it was something I could make work in my decor*. Anyway, so with the minimum bid already set to a low $40, I entered my bidding number, and hoped that the bidding would begin.

Uh yeah.

Y'all, meet My New Statue. Statue, meet y'all...........

Now I'm not quite sure what this statue symbolizes. Does anyone know? It's not the Hindu God of Fertility or some such thing is it???!!!!!!! Because if it is ... it will need to go! :)


*does that imply my decor is ugly?? :)