E-Bay Madness

Have you ever bought anything on E-Bay?
I remember the thrill of the first auction that I "won".
I wanted to purchase a radio remote controlled 3 foot sailboat for my Dad to race in his swimming pool. He had recently moved to Florida and didn't know a lot of people and I thought this would be good to keep him entertained.

I sat at the computer at 8 p.m. and complied with the tedious task of registering on E-Bay for the first time....I then sat back and was prepared to calmly enjoy my first internet auction bidding experience.
Over the next three hours, there were a couple of weeny bids on my item here and there atttempting to scare me. But I was confident.
Bidding started at $4.00. I placed my ceiling bid at $11.00 hoping I would get it for a lot less. This was going to be a piece of cake.

About 10 minutes left in the bidding, I saw the bidding go from $4.00 to $5.00 to $6.00 to $11.00! I sat up closer in my chair...I "upped" my bid.
But $15.00 was as high as I was going to go.
The bidding war continued to escalate.

With 5 minutes left at 11:55 at night, the bid was $32.50 and I had changed my bid 12 times and was now sweating worse than Martha Stewart in court.
So emersed in this battle was I that I knew that I HAD TO WIN AT ALL COSTS...the seller noted in his descripton that this was the only boat he had for sale! What would Dad DO without this remote controlled toy!
NO one was going to out-bid me!

I decided to raise my bid for the 8th time in 180 minutes.
$67.50 and that was my final offer with 1 minute remaining. I KNEW I had it won and I was imaging the fun Dad would have with...what? Wait!.......30 seconds left and someone out-bid me! I hurridly banged away at the keys and plugged in the FINAL-FINAL bid of $88.80.

My heart was thumping like a hound-dog's tail on rabbit huntin'day. (good gracious! where the heck did THAT come from??)
$79.50 and I WON!! I jumped up and down like a 10 year old on a new pogo stick! I screamed like I had just slapped hands with Howie Mandell on Deal or No Deal!
Obviously, the celebration dance awaked my slumbering Father.
He sleepily asked if I had looked up the model's price on the internet from a retailer's web site.
Good idea.

or was it?

OK..so ANYONE can get caught up in this auction-action, right?
So what if I could have bought 7 brand new radio remote-controlled sail boats for Dad and his new friends. What's the big deal?

The next night I looked on E-Bay for the same item. The same seller had another one up for sale. Only this time, he only got $10.50 for it.

Must have had something wrong with it.