Another favorite cruise experience of mine was the art auction. On our last day at sea they announced the auction over the PA. I was intrigued...mainly because they advertised that everyone got free art for going. I was sold. No one else in my family was too keen on the idea of going but Sam took one for the team and went with me. We signed up and was given a bidding card. We didn't really plan on bidding for any art but why not take a number...you know, just in case. We refused the complimentary champagne and browsed around the gallery before the auctioned started. With our expert appraisal Sam and I figured most if not all of the pieces were beyond our budget. And when the first piece went up on the block we realized we were right. Some of the pieces were starting at $24,000! Naturally Sam and I kept our bid card well below eye level.
Then they pulled out the mystery auctions. They told us the artist, then the street value of the paintings (over $1000) but didn't let us see them yet. It was a pair of paintings we would be bidding on. The auctioneer started saying, "We are offering this pair to the first 20 of you to raise your card at a limited price of not 800, not 700, not 600, not 500..." My ears perked up. What a great deal! two paintings at a fraction of their real worth. "not 400 dollars, " the man continued. I had heard enough. I threw up our card. The final price was $360. HOLLER! I was beaming as I thought about my first art auction. Sam was not as thrilled.
But he also got in on the action. One of the auction lots was a collective bid. The type where the bidding starts real low and you lower your card when it gets to high for you. The painting we were bidding on was pretty cool and we could easily picture it on our parents' wall. The bidding started at $1 and Sam raised our number. It went up to $10. Then $20. It slowly climbed by tens as I asked Sam what his maximum was. I'm pretty sure he had no intention of actually buying the art but he replied he would lower it at $100. Well the auctioneer called it at $90 with our card still raised in the air. Sam and I looked at each other in shock. I tried to stifle my laughter crouching behind the row of chairs in front of us as the auction continued. In my mind I was totaling up our purchases. $450 in art. And we walked in there thinking we wouldn't even bid. Sam kept saying, "What have we done?" as we tried to figure out the financial logistics. I still thought the whole situation was hilarious. We just bid on art! As the auction ended the fast talking auctioneer said all who placed winning bids would need to schedule an appointment with his assistant to work out shipping details. We hesitantly set up an appointment to meet with Roxana, the "Romanian firecracker" as the man with the mic called her.
We left the auction gallery dreading that 8:40 appointment. But we had more pressing matters to worry about: our parents. We woke Mom up from a nap to tell her how our first art auction went. We also told her we may or may not have bought some pieces. She laughed and said, "You boys," as she started going back to sleep. Later we talked to both her and Dad. Mom admitted she wasn't totally coherent the first time around and was still trying to figure out if it was a dream or not. We assured her it was no dream. Yes, we in fact bought art. $450 worth. Dad agreed to accompany us to our doomsday appointment. After some dinner we made our way up to the art gallery to meet our fates. Luckily, only one of our bids was recorded. Let's chalk it up to divine intervention. We were only on the hook for $90. Superb! In the end, I'd say the art auction was a resounding success.
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