Last weekend was crazy. It went from managing a garbage sale from within the confines of my garage on Friday, to having a trembling hand while I tried to get the winning bid on a Neo Geo arcade cabinet late Sunday.

So let me preface this by saying, “yo, we made some money at our garage sale.” After I had sold my old Bass guitar and amp, I had enough to consider buying something I’d been eyeing for a few weeks now; a Neo Geo MVS arcade cabinet. Just my luck, there was one up for bid on eBay that was actually within driving distance. And to top things off, the initial bids were low.

SUPER low…

So, I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I stressed out all day Sunday because I thought this could be my chance. I called up my dad and planned on having him accompany me on the following Friday to pick it up just in case I won. Then the final hour came and the bid started to creep up.

It had begun.

I didn’t do anything, I just waited. My plan was to wait until about 20 minutes were left to put my name in the ring (I just wanted to make sure my account stuff was working, or else I would have waited longer). Not a minute later, another person outbid me. So I went back to waiting.

At 5 minutes left, I noticed the price that was a mere $80 at the beginning of the day, and only $91 a half hour before, was now creeping above $250. This was still a steal of a price, and it was all the money I had. So with my best puppy dog impression, I asked my wife what my limit was. She just shook her head and said, “I’ll let you make that call.”

This was my moment.

She gave me carte blanche.

So I ran back to the cloffice and dropped another bid with 2 minutes to spare. I looked at the bid history and noticed that it was just down to me and one other guy. By the time I even refreshed the item page, I was outbid. He seemed to want the cabinet as badly as me. So I waited, again, until just under a minute was left. I put in another bid at $325. Again I was the high bidder, again within seconds I was outbid.

20 seconds left.

I put in another bid. It wasn’t enough.

10 seconds left.

I put in another bid at $340. HIGH BIDDER.

5 seconds left.

I was outbid!

Hands shaking, I typed in my next bid, my final bid of $350. This was going to be my personal limit….this was it….

I was too slow.

I honestly lost the bid because my hands were trembling so bad that I couldn’t click in time.

I had lost the sale…..by 5 dollars.

Congrats to the lucky winner. The cabinet looked to be in great shape, and at $345, he got a great deal. Some day I’ll get my Neo Geo cabinet, but losing it made me reconsider buying one right now. I’m thinking it may be best to wait until we move and I get more room for such a thing. Somewhere with a bigger cloffice.