Sunday, April 15, 2018

Makeup a Good Story

Friday night was Precocious Daughter's annual Band Scholarship Dinner/Silent Auction.

Her last one, you guys.

First, the various bands performed and were awesome. As always.

Second, the dinner was chicken strips from Raising Cane's. Cane's sauce is the BEST.

But my favorite part of this annual event is always the silent auction.

Last year I snagged a collectible Star Trek Barbie and Ken.

This year I got a way-cool story to tell.

Check it.

So you probably know how silent auctions work: The items are staged on tables, and each has a bidding sheet in front of it. The bidding sheet includes the name of the item, its retail value, and a starting bid, which is some fraction of the retail value. To bid, you write down your name and your bid, and if you're the last and highest bidder, you win. Boom.

Money is a bit tight right now, because who knew how expensive senior year is? Probably everyone except me, but that's not important. The point is, I didn't have firm plans to bid on anything unless I found something that was a) irresistible or b) a real steal.

To be perfectly honest, not many items stood out to me this year. Maybe because I already knew I couldn't spend much, or maybe because the mix of things just didn't appeal to me this time around.

But there was a collection of makeup from Ulta. Kajillions of eyeshadows, brow pomades, eyeliners, concealers, etc., in a really cool steamer trunk-style box. Gorgeous.

The retail value of the collection was $200, and the opening bid was $50. Basically too rich for my blood at this moment in time.

But then PDaughter and I noticed something.

Some...person (expletive deleted)...had crossed out the $200 retail value and written in $25. AND had crossed out the $50 opening bid and written in $5. And had proceeded to bid $5.

Wut.

Worse, several other people had subsequently entered bids, none of which even touched the legitimate starting bid of $50.

You guys, PDaughter and I were stunned. And mad. We were freaking mad.

First of all, who does that? Who blatantly violates the rules of the silent auction and changes the bidding structure to suit them?

Second, I knew that the auction organizers would see this fuckery and nullify all the bids because they were lowball. And an item that should have fetched at least $100 for the band would go unsold.

I stewed about this. For a good hour I stewed, while I ate chicken strips, while I listened to music, while I engaged in conversation with my ex (who was also there and who still makes me laugh even though I'm so happy we're no longer married).

And then PDaughter said, "You know, if someone bid the actual minimum of $50, they would totally win it."

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

I'm not going to lie, Drunkards. Fifty bucks is a lot for me right now. I'm paying for senior pictures, AP tests, college enrollment fees, band trip fees, etc. But the idea that a $200 box of high-quality cosmetics would net the band nothing because of some cheap, unethical idiot simply enraged me.

And the idea of having all that makeup to play with really jazzed me and PDaughter.

So I placed a bid. The current bid was a ridiculous $20. I bid $50.

I would have bid the entire $200 if I could swing it.

And I won.

PDaughter and I are stoked to have all this makeup to play with. She wants to try the lip gloss, I love the purple eyeliner. OMG.

Shame on the loser who tried to subvert the silent auction. You are a terrible person.

You guys: Whenever you can choose between being a good person or an asshole, try to choose being good.

Like, if you think band scholarships are less important than getting cheap makeup, go away.

As for me, I have contouring makeup now.

Yaaaassssss.
























3 comments:

  1. Well done! Glad you made the splurge plunge. I bought my wedding cake in a silent auction. Minimum bid was $50. I bid that, thinking there was no way I would win it. I won it. We weren't even engaged yet - but a year later, we enjoyed a massive wedding cake for $50 (and a $25 delivery fee).

    ReplyDelete
  2. We had a silent auction at an organization I worked at where two items were... stolen!

    And I always wonder what kind of person does that. I mean, this sort of event is to raise money, it's not about the value of the items, per se.

    Some people are beneath contempt.

    But you got some makeup out of it, so it's not all bad.

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  3. And now I know that you can actually win a silent auction by bidding less than the minimum asking price. This is knowledge I will never use since every silent auction I've ever been to is for charity.

    ReplyDelete

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