If you take a kid to an auction...

If there were blog police, I would undoubtedly be charged with neglect.  Apparently I have had nothing blog worthy in the past year, and as you know, I only write about deeply profound things.
However, after a completely uneventful year in which my children did nothing (because if it's not written here did it happen?), something happened.  And there were A LOT of witnesses.  Now I realize that two of my three readers were actually there, but this is not for those two (although feel free to add your recollections from the night).  No, this is so i can remember and embarrass her when she's older this is for that third reader who lives in Indonesia and can't always be present to witness the weirdness that is my child.
My brother-in-law works for Youth for Christ (YFC) which runs a wonderful drop-in center for our local teenagers.  They have an annual banquet with an auction as one of their fundraisers.  It was at this auction that the weirdness emerged.  There is no way I can do the story justice in my re-telling, but until I learn to record everything in case of moments like these, this will have to do.

Paige has been fascinated with auctions lately.  She loves watching storage wars, and other shows with shouting people auctions.  So she was very disappointed when we told her that we were not bidding on anything that night.  But she settled in to watch the action from our perfect front and center vantage point.

The first few items sold as expected.  And then there was a bit of a lull.  The auctioneer kept looking for bids, when the voice of my eight year old yelled to the auctioneer:  "You bid!"

I am no auction expert, but from everything that followed, I assume this is not normal auction protocol.

Auctioneer:  What?

Paige:  You're telling everyone else to bid, why don't you?

Auctioneer: Can you come home with me?  You can help my wife keep me in line.

Paige: I'm not allowed to go home with strangers!  But why don't you bid on stuff too?

This seemed to stump the auctioneer.  So he pulled out his wallet, turned his back to the audience, and started rooting around.  When he turned back, he had a $100 Bill in his hand, and was holding it out in Paige's direction.

Auctioneer: Here.

Paige: No!

Auctioneer: Take it.

After some convincing and a quick life lesson regarding if someone offers you cash with no strings attached, you take it, a blushing Paige accepted the cash and sat down.

The auctioneer, having never met Paige before may have assumed their interactions were done for the night.  But (spoiler alert), if you give a kid $100 at an auction, that money will be spent on the auction.  The auctioneer was determined to not let her spend it, but Paige is not the type to give up without a battle.  If we lived in the time of travelling bards, I'm sure the battle that followed would have been sung in kings courts across the land.  But, since we instead live in the land of blogs, this will have to do.

The very next item, she shot her hand in the air, trying to win a scarf and purse for Grandma.  Unfortunately, they shot over her limit quickly.

Jewellery was up, and those earrings looked so pretty (she does not have pierced ears).  The auctioneer started the bidding lower, but Paige yelled: "just jump to $100!"

After that, the auctioneer knew she was not giving up.  Her competition was informed that the item would cost them at least $105.  But he was kind enough to always acknowledge her $100 bid.  Her enthusiasm, and his resistance got him trying to convince people to pool their money, just to outbid her.  He was desperate to not let her win, and he did a great job of convincing others to outbid her.

But, finally, she won.  I don't know if no one wanted it, or if there was an unspoken agreement across the entire room to just let this kid go home with something.  But she won a custom photo canvas for $100.  So, if she has her way, every time we see the two foot long family photo of us and dinosaurs, we can remember to never take her to an auction ever again the wonderful night we had supporting our local teens.

So, the morals of this tale are threefold::
1.  Talking back gets you paid.
2.  A kid with $100 will not be stopped.
3.  The weirdness does not stop at eight years old.