Alarming moments on eBay

So. The Builder and his boys have been working all the hours that God sends over the past few days, trying to get their fire door project finished by the time the inspectors came to look at it.

They succeeded. Just. There is still some modification and adjustment to be done, but by 12:00 it was finished and The Builder and the boys repaired to the pub.

I met The Builder back at The Vixen at around 20 to 6.

!!!

I drove home. :-p The Builder slept home.

He slept quite enthusiastically for most of the evening, too. He did manage to wake up for his egg, bacon and toast (he and the boys hadn't thought to have any lunch, being preoccupied with celebratory beer) and in time to have a restorative glass of wine before going to bed. And then not again until the radio came on at half past five.

Thus it fell to me to monitor progress on the van The Builder was watching on eBay.

He had instructed me to put in a fishing bid of up to £1800. So I put in a bid of £1855.

And was a bit surprised when I checked to find that his bid on the van was showing at £2500. Investigated further - and found that I had inadvertently put in a maximum bid of - - - - - - £18055!!!!!!!!!!!

You could buy a shiny, magnificent, all-singing, all-dancing one for that :-S

I emailed the seller to explain what had happened. By the time I got back to the auction page, The Builder's bid was up to £15000.

I thought this was odd, but didn't have time to think about it much. The auction closed in ten minutes and you aren't supposed to retract bids after the auction has closed.

I retracted the bid and went to The Builder's email to make sure a confirmation email had come through. It had. But before it arrived another email came in saying that he had been OUTBID!!!!!! I think someone must have made a similar sort of mistake. Actually, I'm not sure quite what was happening there. It all seemed very odd.

Happily for all concerned, the van eventually sold for £1950. Well, happily for all except the seller, though I don't suppose he could have held anyone to a bid of £18200. Nobody would spend that much on an ancient little old van!

But let this be a lesson to us all. It is a Very Bad Plan to put bids on eBay while you have a cat asleep on your lap, the laptop balanced on the arm on the chair and while you are watching something on the telly at the same time. At least, not before checking that you have actually bid what you thought you were bidding. Almost gave me heart failure, it did!!

The Builder left his boys in the pub when he came out and weaved his way back to The Vixen. I wonder what time they got into work this morning. I wonder if they did get into work this morning!

I think we should be allowed to go to the pub for the afternoon when we complete major projects. Sadly, this seems to be frowned upon by SHU management