Calm, Cool and Collected

eBay sounds so simple in theory. You scan the ads, you find what you are looking for and then you bid for it. When the auction ends, he with the best bid wins. Simple, right?

That is, until the last 30 seconds when someone from God only knows where decides they are going to out bid you on something you've been winning all day. Like a toaster that only toasts on one side.

You think, "Aha! No one else is going to bid on this old piece of junk! I'll finally have toast the way I like it!" There you sit, for hours, guarding your bid of 2 euros.

You watch, patiently.

3 hours to go.

2 hours to go and still at 2 euros.

49 minutes and counting.

17 minutes to go and the one side toasting toaster will be yours.

3 minutes.

30 seconds. You can taste that toast now. Crunchy and soft at the same time.

10 seconds. Your heart begins to beat with excitement.

2 seconds and some Joe Shmoe, with no appreciation of your breakfast needs, throws out a bid of 2.50 euros.

The toaster of your dreams disappears before you even had a chance to open the jam jars. If you are anything like me, you'll scream and curse and yell horrible words at the computer and then feel so sick to your stomach that you can't even fathom eating much less eating such a stupid piece of bread brown on only one side!

Luckily for me, Hubster can actually handle the stress of bidding. He's got that competitive mind set that let's him see eBay as a giant game and not as a source of happiness and joy.

He watches. He calculates. He says nothing.

We followed a fantastic family sized tent the other day. I kept sneaking to have a look at the bids off and on all day, fixated by this tent and what it was going to sell for. I was a twitter.

Hubster, meanwhile, worked in the garden, cleared out the rubbish in our crumbling anex, made a cup of coffee, and played with the dogs.

With less than 5 minutes to go on the bidding, I turned into my other self, the whirling dervish.

Hubster, still outside and seemingly oblivious, moved bricks.

With 1 minute to go, I had to physically restrain myself from going near the computer by locking myself in the bathroom and singing Alicia Keys at the top of my voice.

"Honey, you can come out now," I surprisingly heard Hubster call.

There he was sitting at the computer, covered in dirt, smiling from ear to ear.

"I threw out a bid at 2 seconds to go and we won the tent!"

Oh happiness! Oh joy! It feels so, so good to be married to Joe Shmoe!