Auction

I find auctions very odd. The weird drama of it. The strangeness of the groups of people clustered around a backyard or a front yard or standing around a dusty room; all pretending they are not really interested in buying the house. All the real-estate stooges playing their roles. I am always tempted to burst out laughing at the wrong moment.

The auction going cat

Our family went to an auction this evening. The house directly behind our current abode is for sale. We traipsed around the corner. Man, woman, pram containing toddler and boy on a bike. The neighbours and rubber-neckers were out in force. We had already been to the open house before this evening, we had discussed this house and what it might be worth. We knew we were not in a position to buy it. The agent, with whom we had discussed our lack of preparedness was pleased to see us, hopeful no doubt we had just found a big pile of money down the back of the sofa; we hadn’t.

While we were eyeing the arranged neighbours and potential buyers in the backyard, explaining auction process to Talking Boy and wrangling tired toddler; a little boy was excitedly telling toddler to only pat the cat gently. That would be our cat who had slipped over the fence and was delighted to find the usually empty next door backyard filled with people including us!  She was ingratiating herself with the small boy. The toddler who is intimately acquainted with Sylvie, took no notice of the small boy yelling ‘gentle’, and was giving Sylvie a vigorous rub. We just pretended that she wasn’t our cat. Talking Boy was busting to let the cat out of the bag (sorry).

Sylvie worked her way around the people, testing their willingness to love her.  The auction started and we tried to keep our party of five under control, with some difficulty. Toddler got hungry, Talking Boy got bored, the auction dragged on and was eventually an anti-climax and the house was passed in. The disappointed agent gritted her teeth at the prospect of negotiating with the final bidder, who were a couple way out of their comfort zone and over their price range. We stumbled home with everyone except Sylvie, who stayed around to check out the rest of the evenings entertainment over the fence.