My Dream Braided Rug (or Bargaining FAIL)

Click to enlarge.  ♥

While Mike watches football tonight, I've escaped to the bedroom to glue all the magazine clippings I've saved lately--mostly decorating ideas, some outfits, some quotes, a few recipes, some home/life tips--into my inspiration scrapbooks.  In tonight's pile of saved clippings is this page I printed and mailed to my mom in the summer of 2010.  I had found--well, seen--my dream rug on eBay and saved the seller's photos to show her.  If you click the above photo, you'll better understand my heartache at not being able to "Buy It Now" this rug.  Ah!  It is perfect for me--and a whopping 10' around so is the perfect size for under my table.  ♥  Mom had saved this page with some of her mail and gave it back to me when I was home in November.  Seeing the rug photos again makes me swoon, and rereading my note now makes me laugh. 

The eBay seller had listed a "Buy It Now" price of $850 plus shipping costs, but had set up the auction so it began at nothing and included the "Make me an offer" option.  I thought I would be crafty--I thought I actually had a SHOT at this gorgeous rug (poor naive little Val)--so I made an offer of forty dollars, thinking that the seller would say (s)he couldn't go lower than $250 or so, I'd make a counter-offer of $100, we'd settle on $150 or $200--prices that struck me as fair--and I'd ride off into the sunset on my magic rug.  I was already imagining the rug under my round gingham tablecloth-covered table,  Stuffed curled up in all his black and white glory on the colorful braids, patchwork cushions on the chairs, red Geraniums as a table centerpiece, and Holly Hobbie herself eating her heart out over this perfect, perfect rug.  On this wave of braided bliss, I confidently submitted my offer of $40.  The seller pulled my magic rug out from under me when (s)he wrote back, just seconds later, "I think you meant to add another zero to that."

My heart!  It's so silly--we're talking about a RUG, just a rug--but it still hurts.  The seller expected a STARTING offer of $400?!  Gah!  And why sellers don't just start the bidding at whatever they deem the lowest acceptable price to be instead of using the vague "Make-me-an-offer" tactic, I don't know.  I'd have never gotten my hopes up if I'd known the bidding was to start so high.  My heart, my heart!  I watched the eBay listing each day hoping that maybe the seller would lower the "Buy It Now" price or put it on sale at some point, since I couldn't imagine anyone would bid on this beautiful rug at those prices anyway, but--no.  Once when I checked it, the auction was updated as having sold--to a buyer who had simply bought it for the full "Buy It Now" price of $850 plus shipping.  And to think I had made a starting bid of $40!  Ha!  And moreover:  Someone out there has this sweet rug!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I hope it is well-loved and is admired every day, I hope there is a cat or dog cozily curled-up and napping on it right this minute, and I hope I myself find another just like it someday.  If I had enough space to work on one, I might, but I also wonder if, if I even had the work-space, by the time I'd buy enough materials to make a rug this size, if it wouldn't add up to a lot more than I'd want to spend on just one item anyway.  I don't know.  In the meantime, I keep the photos and my note in one of my inspiration scrapbooks and hope for "someday."  And I think:  Forty dollars!?!  HA!  Val, Val, Val.  :)

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