On the Auction Block

You know, I used to think that the minutes in life that pass the slowest are those between you and your lunch when you're supremely hungry, waiting in a long line for the ladies' room at a rest stop when you've had to pee for an hour, or sitting in traffic that you didn't expect when you just want to be there already! I now know differently. I recently spent the longest two minutes of my life in a crowded bar in Midtown, waiting for someone to raise their hand to indicate their willingness to pay to spend time with me. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I was one of the items up for bid in a charity date auction. If it weren't for the proceeds going to a good cause, I would never have done this in the first place, and I certainly don't have big plans to do it again. There wasn't a stage, just a chair for the auctionees to stand on. This was a mixed blessing. It meant that there was no pressure to dance, strut, or otherwise perform, but it also meant that basically you had to just stand there, wave, smile, wink, etc, and search for your friends to make sure that their bidding arms were ready to go in case you needed rescuing from a potentially creepy date. (I must here give thanks for those friends: Jane and her husband, and my relatively new buddy Amy.) So, I'm tall already, and awkward enough on the ground, but stick me on a chair and both of those traits get amplified. So fun! So for two minutes I stood up there as the auctioneer read off my answers to the questions they asked us in advance, and I was grateful for every sound of recognition that gave me somewhere to look besides at a point just above everyone's heads. Which I'm sure made me look a tad crazy. Ah well. I am pleased to say that more than one person did bid on me, my friends did not have to pay money to spend time with me, and I brought in more than just the minimum bid. Not a lot more, but enough to be respectable. So sometime in the next few weeks I'll be taking a coworker of a friend of mine on a date, and I am hopeful that we will at least have fun, if not fall madly in love ;o).