They say “war is hell.” I understand that intimately, for I am an eBay shopper. Here is my harrowing tale of survival.
The year was 2015. Some young upstart named Kenny G released an album called Brazilian Nights, which shook American pop culture to its core, skyrocketing all the way to No. 86 on the Billboard music charts. Twice-divorced women in America once again had reason to celebrate on two-for-one margarita night.
I was sitting at home on a Friday night, watching a British lady solve brutal murders in her seaside town on Netflix, as was the custom of the time. While I was sipping on a Mountain Dew and vodka, the traditional ladies drink of the era, a peculiar thought struck me: I need to buy more shoes. Unbenownst to me, the Great eBay War of 2015 was just on the horizon.
It was going to a be a challenge. My resources were already heavily concentrated on another front, on Facebook. I was engaged in a battle with my cousin who had been mad at me ever since I posted on her page, “There’s no such thing as ‘too drunk at a baptism.’” She claimed to have photographs of me that proved otherwise.
In her ongoing attack, she had managed to marshal her forces against me and create a solid block consisting of my aunt, several former co-workers, and someone named “Jenny S.,” who claimed to have taken a class at the learning annex once with me.
As I began to turn my attention on to the “Ending Soon” section of eBay shoe sales, I realized I would have to make big sacrifices. I failed to “like” my sister’s comment to my cousin, which read, “Don’t complain to me; at my wedding she tried to fight the wedding cake.” I would have to leave my sister alone there to protect my honor, hoping she had enough snarky eye-roll gifs to continue to hold the line of defense.
But sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war, and the Great eBay War of 2015 beckoned just beyond my browser tab.
Just as I was beginning my reconnaissance of the field of shoes, my eagle eye spotted something truly miraculous. A pair of vintage Manolo Blahniks, in fairly decent condition, listed for the inexplicably low price of $40.
But I hesitated. Was I being led into a trap? Buying shoes online is a tricky venture. Sure, those one-of-a-kind Chanel couture shoes “once worn by Cindy Crawford” look great and seem like a good bargain for $12.99, but what arrives at your house is less a pair of shoes and more a half-eaten package of liverwurst wrapped in a brown paper bag.
I amped up my surveillance. The buyer had a 98 percent positive rating, the dip in a perfect 100 being owed to a buyer named Lizzys87cats who was upset because a purse she had purchased looked like a different shade of blue than the photo. Amateur. Everyone knows the photos are always off in color. Lizzys87cats was lucky she made it out of there alive.
These particular shoes represented a sort of fashion “white whale” for me. They were the infamous shoes that Sarah Jessica Parker wore in the “A Woman’s Right to Shoes” episode of Sex and the City, a show that literally helped ruin my credit rating. In the episode, Carrie gets her shoes stolen because she is a complete moron who leaves $500 shoes just sitting around.
Sure, at the time we all thought it was such an atrocity that someone dared ask Carrie Bradshaw, shoe queen of America, to take her precious shoes off before coming in their home, but honestly, what kind of idiot just leaves something that expensive unattended? I have a $12 SpongeBob SquarePants digital watch that I keep under lock and key. But sure, throw your Manolo Blahniks just anywhere and blame everyone else when they turn up missing.
I originally saw this episode in 2003. Fourteen years later, I was still trying to score a pair of these shoes. But these particular shoes still run about $600 to $700, with inflation. I’m a working journalist, it would take me approximately 34,603 years to save up that much money.
The only way I was ever going to have enough money to buy a pair, short of pulling off some elaborate long-con on a wealthy widow, was here and now. I would win these shoes or leave my rotting corpse in the “outbid” column, doomed to walk in shoddy designer knockoffs for all eternity.
At the eleventh hour, things were good. I had a $49 bid and felt confident. Then, at about 11:15 p.m., some rancid seahag threw up a $51 bid. FIFTY. FREAKING. ONE. DOLLARS. What kind of Price Is Right bid-a-dollar-over-the-highest-bid garbage is that?
I tried to bid $51.50, but as quickly as I hit “place bid,” the witch outbid me at $53. This was psychological warfare. This buyer was playing at another level. I needed to regroup and come up with a new line of attack.
I made four phone calls to people I hadn’t spoken to in years who were pretty regular eBay sellers who I thought might have some tricks. “Hi Beth, yes, it’s Rebecca; no I don’t care anymore that you slept with my boyfriend in 2008 and sorry about that keying your car thing. By the way, do you still have that eBay store and how do you beat buyers who try to outbid you?” Who better to ask? After all, she was sneaky as heck.
Thanks to Beth and her waterfall of latent guilt, I emerged with some excellent tips on how to beat the jerky last-minute bidders. Honestly, most of those tips were “watch the clock and don’t let this witch outbid you,” but it worked wonders. At 11:58 p.m., I bid $58 whispered a prayer to the wind.
At 11:59 p.m., I refreshed the screen one fatal last time. As the screen reloaded, I held my ranks at the ready. Should they outbid me this time we were going to have to do a lot of work, tracking down this other buyer’s real identity and stalking her at work.
As the numbers slowly appeared on the screen, I held my breath. $58 flashed before my eyes. “This auction has now ended,” the words in red said underneath the picture of my battle-won shoes. I was victorious. I let out my mighty war yawp, scaring the dog and prompting my boyfriend to run in screaming, “Is this the zombies? I KNEW IT!” and scramble for his “zombie bug-out bag.”
So that’s how I ended up with a pair of vintage Manolo Blahniks that, despite costing $700 retail, only cost me $58 ($67.50 with shipping). Now go brave readers, and tell this tale of victory to the denizens at the shoe aisles at Ross, to give them hope in their own battles.
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose dares you to try and outbid her. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 3, 2017.