The Auction!

Saturday’s adventure was a visit to the auction for which we’d received a notice in the mail earlier in the week. It’s not an antique auction nor a farm-equipment nor a farm-animal auction, but more like a massive garage sale in auction form. The warehouse is full of all sorts of things, none of it very nice. There were furniture, appliances, bikes, boxes of almost completely random stuff like some old plastic food containers with dishes and maybe an umbrella, some lovely framed pictures (Justin threatened to bid on one of a big-eyed boy and his small puppy), tools, parts of computers, lots baby car-seats, some bench seats from cars, etc.

Each item or group of items had a lot number masking taped to it. When you came in you could get a list of all the items by lot number and description, with a little place to write down what you’d bid on it if you got it (at least that’s how I saw people using the last column). You also got a card with your bidder number on it. The auctioneer was up on a riser, doing the classic fast auction patter, made even more incomprehensible to me by his Aussie English. After a time, though, I got used to it and could follow what he was saying, even when he made jokes.

Did I mention how hot this big metal warehouse is? There are some fans going, and somebody’s doing a brisk business selling cold sodas and hotdogs wrapped in slices of white bread. Some people are wandering around looking at the different items, deciding whether something is worth bidding on when the time comes. There is one section of plastic chairs, occupied by those who arrived early, I suspect. Most people are sitting on chairs that are for sale or are perched on file cabinets and tables. Several of the men in the plastic chairs look like real old-timer Territorians: long bushy beards, tattooed arms, battered hats and weathered faces. A boy of about eleven, sucking on a camelback, walked around with a long striped pole, holding it up next to the item that was currently being auctioned. Sometimes he would hold up the actual item, too.

I know what you’re wondering: Did we bid on anything? Did we get carried away and bid too much? Yes, and no, respectively. We bid on a group of four baskets, bidding against someone Justin vaguely knows, a woman who works for Legal Aid. We won with the top offer of $6. Justin bid on some plant pots for me, when I wasn’t paying attention, but someone else went higher than we wanted to go. Justin also bid on a weed-eater, but didn’t want to pay more than $10, so it went to the other bidder for $11. We bid successfully on a small desk ($10) which may turn out to be really crappy—we couldn’t get right up to it to see. We’ll be borrowing a car to pick up our stuff tomorrow. Oh, yes, and M (our roommate) got herself a decent bicycle for $35. None of us having ever participated in an auction before, we all felt proud of having successfully negotiated a new cultural experience (albeit not a uniquely Australian one).