05.04.07
Auctions & Your Family Life
If you commit to running an auction you can say good bye to your family life outside of the auction preparation for a while. My family always was involved – in nursery school my children would put the labels on the envelopes for the gift certificates, as they got older they helped wrap baskets and on one occasion where the auction was held at a hotel that we had taken rooms for the night, they helped pack and collect items for the buyers (after guests and alcohol were out of the room).
It gets so consuming you sometimes lose track of other threads of your life that are coming up. One year I received four boxes of items, delivered to my home, that included high-end purses, a few assorted collectibles, some clothes and a few pairs of shoes and boots. Some of it seemed slightly worn. No return address anywhere.
I puzzled over the contents – did someone clear out their closets and wasn’t really clear on what we wanted so they sent everything? I called around seeing if anyone else working on the auction was expecting a shipment. No luck. Perhaps I could auction a couple of the items and send the rest to a consignment store?
Fortunately, before I disposed of the items, my cousin called. She was planning to move in with us briefly between the end of her college and her return to Europe in 6 weeks. Since she really was a very organized girl, she shipped all her items to us early. It never occurred to her that I would attribute boxes of clothing to anything else.
