Saturday, March 27, 2010

Going once, going twice...Sold!

Today was the annual fundraiser carnival at my sons school. It's a big event every year replete with games, bounce houses and carnival fare, i.e. cotton candy. There are items to bid on in a silent auction as well as a live auction later in the day.

We started at the dunk tank. Always a big hit! The boys enjoyed all of the bounce house mazes and slides. I think, besides the dunk tank, what the kids look forward to each year the most are the confetti eggs. Someone emptied egg shells, filled them with confetti and sealed them off with tissue paper. (Glad I did not volunteer for that!) You can purchase your eggs with a ticket and the rest of the day is spent chasing friends around with your loaded egg in hopes of cracking it over their head.

My friend Tiffany and I were cracking up watching our boys chase after each other. Whenever my Nugget chased a child he always shouted to them "Be still! Be still!!" It was too funny! It looked like so much fun that I bought an egg of my own and littered Tiff's hair with confetti. The boys really got a kick out of that!

It doesn't take long for the fun to sputter out and we went home but Aaron went back to give the live auction a go. He had not had the chance to sit in on one in the past.

Last year I stayed and there were a pair of Astro tickets up for bid. I know how much my husband likes baseball and so I thought it would be a great buy. He could take our oldest and make a big day of it!

The bidding started at $200 but no one went for it so they lowered it to $100. I thought maybe I'd get myself a deal so I started bidding. Another fella and I went back and forth for a little bit until I won them for $250. Stupid,stupid, stupid. I immediately felt buyers remorse. I called a friend to see if I had at least gotten the tickets at a fair price.

"Are they season tickets?" He asked.

"Nooo..."

"Does this include food?"

Poop.

So this year it was decided, no bidding for me!

Every year they auction off painted pottery that has the thumbprints of the children in each class. This year our sons class piece was a beautiful water pitcher. My husband won it in, what he said, was the most intense bidding war there. Most of the pottery went for about $60-$80. We won ours at $250! Yeah. It's a pretty little piece and it is one of a kind. One of a kind alright. I looked for my sons thumbprint and found that they misspelled his name! Gabriel was spelled GRabriel. Frickin' nice.

But wait! There's more! We are not just the proud owners of a pottery piece with our sons name misspelled. We are also the proud owners of a huge bowl with the state of Texas' flag painted on it and little yellow roses! I examined those little yellow roses. They were made from the thumbprints of....who? Who are these children? Who's class was this? Ms. Brown? What grade does she teach?

"Honey, why did you bid on a piece that we don't even know the kids or the teacher?"

"Well, I didn't think I would win it. I was just hoping to help the bidding out."

In other words: he felt sorry for it because it was not going for as good of a price as some of the other pieces were. I wonder why....

Next year I think we will head straight for the dunk tank and skip the auction all together. :P

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