When I got back to the computer I found, with an odd mix of relief and disappointment, that I had been out-bid ... one guy who'd bid on it a few days ago came in 10% higher than my bid, and then, just 3 seconds after his bid, another guy (I'm assuming via a bot) came in with a bid a buck higher (with only six seconds left on the auction) and won it.
Now, we're not talking huge sums of money here ... the winning bid was just a bit less than twenty bucks more than my "target" ... but I'm usually more disciplined about this! While I'm sure Daughter #1 would have been thrilled to have gotten these cards, I'm also pretty sure that there are a lot of other Xmas goodies that she'd list ahead of them for the same dollars .. so I guess this was just some free adrenaline rush for me. I am a bit peeved, though, as this is the fifth auction from this seller which I've lost in the last few seconds (the same seller had those four auctions that I wrote about a couple of days ago), even though being beat by different bidders this time.