Trust Tommy

Gosh, this is like one of those sordid love affairs that my Mum would watch in one of her soaps! This on-off-on-off relationship storyline is usually kept to Fair City or Corrie. Well, obviously the story wouldn’t involve an iPhone, but you get the point.

We all know of my god-awful history with iPhones.

iPhone #1 slipped out of my hand in SuperQuinn. Screen damaged, yet rest OK

iPhone #2 was ordered off eBay in early November. Delivered to Patrick in the ‘Couv to save on shipping. Patrick brought it to Paris where he was meeting Dad. Got stolen out of his luggage at the airport.

iPhone #3 is technically #1, but I tried getting it repaired. Was in Dublin on the 6th and after my appointment I went into Camden Street, but no, they’d need a new screen from eBay.

Finally, iPhone #4 was ordered off eBay last night.

When I found and bookmarked the auction, it was at 180 with one bid. I watched it and the clock counted down to 19:26, when the auction would end. With 5 minutes to go, still only one bid. 4 minutes, 3, 2 minutes to go arrived and still only one bid! I’d tried to get one on Thursday too, it ended at 225 with 29 bids, so why was this so quiet? Dad put it down to extreme snipers, but I wasn’t sure.

I had Dad’s laptop open to watch the time while I’d make ready my bid of 200 when the time came. Unusually, Dad’s laptop, when the auction was loaded, gave me a completely different auction view, with a real time countdown timer, invaluable to the sniper bidder.

1 minute arrived at I clicked ‘bid’. I got taken to my confirmation screen and I confirmed. Then I saw that lovely eBay page. “Well done, you’re the high bidder” with that big green tick √ of success. I watched the clock on Dad’s laptop while reloading the auction on mine.

With about 30 seconds left, one reload turned red and said a new bid had been placed. 198£. I quickly put 205 on it, and again got taken to that stupidly frivolous confirmation screen. Frantically, one eye to the timer, I confirmed with about 8 seconds to go. My laptop loaded the next stage really slowly and I watched the timer end. I quickly scrolled along the page looking to see who’d won. I saw a link to the original auction and clicked on it. Top of the screen was that big √ with the immortal words “Congratulations, Tommyxkr, you’ve won the auction!”

Woo!

*

So! 198 is what it went for. Add the 13 he shipped for and I owe the seller 211£. Stole it out the door, practically.

If you’re interested, here’s a link to the auction.