Eeeeeee-bay
I guess some of you know of some of my eBay rage attacks but the one that lasted the longest -- because it's still ongoing -- is over a certain person who shall remain nameless whom I have christened "Queen of the eBay Snipers."
Before sniping was really a known thing, you know, before "evvvvverybody" was doing it and all these sniping programs had come out, this person already had it down to an art. And I seemed to be one of her favorite victims. Auction after auction that I had bid on was SNATCHED from my quivering fingertips mere seconds before the auction ended.
The first time it happened I sent a cordial but curious email, "Gee, didn't you see I had bid on that? I thot there was a sort of unwritten code of honor amongst vacuum cleaner collectors who have been chums for a while..."
Well, it happened a 2nd and a 3rd time, after having gotten no reply from the Sniper Queen. My next email was not quite so cordial. After it happened 3 more times in rapid succession, I let loose -- full bore with both guns. Those who have been the unhappy recipients of my ire via email can just imagine... Yes, Maggie DOES have a very bad temper sometimes.
I finally got a very insulting "get over it dearie" sort of reply and that was that. And thus ended a several-year-long friendship between us, and all because of greed and selfishness.
I don't have any problem with someone sniping once in a while for something they really want, and honestly, today, I can see the point in it. Especially with so many people doing it now. If you bid early, your bid is going to increase, a dollar at a time, until you either are outbid or end up paying through the nose. I've been known to snipe a time or to myself.
But what separates the men from the, uh, queens, is those who do it compulsively, excessively, seemingly snatching away every thing that comes along. Especially literature in this one case, and never mind the fact that this person has accumulated so much stuff that she was obliged to rent three silos in her area to store it. She grabs, and grabs, and grabs, even on things that I know for a fact she already has multiple copies of......
And especially because none of this literature will ever see the light of day again. It gets squirreled away (probably into Silo Number Seven by now) and no one ever sees it again. If it was shared, you know, copied, passed on, submitted for Picture of the Day (fat chance of that ever happening), her greed would not be so egregious. But since nothing is ever shared, that just makes her compulsive sniping all the more disheartening.
So the upshot of THAT is, rather than keep my blood pressure in the stratosphere, I simply don't bid on paperwork anymore because I know the likelihood is great that I'm just gonna get sniped, and irritated. A crumpled sweeper brochure is not worth my health and generally happy state of mind.
Actually, my perpetual impoverishment, coupled with a constant need to reduce my inventory, also has caused me to become little more than an eBay window shopper -- drooling over some of the things that come along but letting them pass by with a sad sigh.
(The flip side of the Sniper is the "Territory Marker" -- there are certain people who come trotting over, lift their leg, and leave their mark on auctions the minute they are listed as if to mark their territory and warn other dogs to stay away! This of course has no effect whatsoever on the Sniper Queen, a big nasty poodle who, nose aloft, demurely saunters in and deposits HER mark at the last possible second.)
"And So It Goes."
