Do they have meetings for this?

I have found my new obsession. Rather than taking any extra money I might happen upon and throwing it away in the casinos, I now throw it away on other people's discarded crap.

Yes, I am addicted to auctions.

My mother has worked for a particular auction company for several years now and would tell us if we needed to come check things out. While we'd occasionally visit one if there were good tools or some specific item of furniture we wanted, we never made it a huge priority on a regular basis.

But now....oh now, I have reached the pinnacle of redneckness and every Saturday you'll find me amidst a crowd of used furniture dealers, old ladies with flea market booths, farmers in bib overalls and various other people you'd never dream you'd be hanging out with and engaging in a meaningful conversation about vintage Christmas ornaments.

My intestines are becoming quite accustomed to the Frito pie it gets every seven days and is washed down with a lukewarm can of Coke.

Yesterday I got a cement frog for $6. Yes, a cement frog for only $6!! You're jealous, aren't you? Yep, I thought you were. Kady was as excited as I was.

I also got a teddy bear in a Santa hat the rides a tricycle while it plays a Christmas song. (Not sure what song it plays, the kids have kidnapped that poor bear and he's somewhere in the back of the house.) I gave $12 for it, which was probably too much, but I had waited around all day to bid on that thing and by golly, I was getting it.

I bid on a won a lot of baskets for $3 and normally I am a basket-hater, but the main basket in the lot was one shaped like Oklahoma. You know, the state I live in? Yeah, that Oklahoma. I got it for Mom. She was utterly ecstatic - well, as ecstatic as one gets over a basket shaped like their home state - and I was happy I could do that for her. And more than likely I'll be able to sell the other baskets in the flea market booth for a couple of bucks each and actually make money on the deal. I'm such an entrepreneur.

There were more Christmas ornaments and decorations I wanted, but Paul and the kids were hot and tired and hungry and since they'd been outside virtually the entire day, I obliged and did what they wanted to do, which was go home and strip down to as few clothes as possible and play PacMan on the PS2.

The auctioneer and his wife are Paul's aunt and uncle. This was a big auction with a lot of nice items so Paul's entire family was notified and was in attendance. At one point during the morning when I was going outside to hang Paul another box of crap I'd won, there was just this huge circle of Winscotts all standing around not talking because that's the kind of family he comes from. Oh, they're wonderful people, but they are not talkers. It's nothing to be sitting around the living room during a holiday and everyone is in one room and no one's saying a word. This is sooooo opposite from my family where there is never a moment where someone isn't talking, laughing or entertaining in some way. While I love 'em, I didn't hang around in the big non-talking circle too much - there were too many articles of crap items to bid on anyway.

I totally get into "auction mode" when the lots and items I want are coming up. I send the kids off to be with their daddy, I clear my throat to make sure my voice is good and strong so I can holler "HEY!" when I bid and then I make sure I'm firmly planted where I want to be so that the ol' blue hairs I'm bidding against don't think they can shove me out of the way. Oh no, I'm fatter'n you, old woman and I've got my eye on that Black and Decker Scum Buster and you are not going to distract me with your perfume that smells like furniture polish and the inordinate amount of cat hair all over your clothes. Oh no....I am in the zone.

I didn't get that Scum Buster, though - I'm cheap and I figure if I can't get a Scum Buster for less than $15 when it's already busted someone else's scum in their mildewy bathtub, then I'd just rather pay full price.

But that cement frog looks so dang cute out there next to the cement garden gnome. Kady had the auspicious honor of placing him in his new home. Then the five of us stood there in the yard and admired the rock bed (rock bed because I can't grow flowers and hey, rocks don't die) and that's when I decided that I need an old toilet to put out by the fence to use as a planter.

Hey, we already have a pink bathtub in the field to water any animals we might someday own, so I think the toilet flower pot will only add to the ambience. If rednecks have ambience, that is.

Yeah, I think we do.