Landing Moby Dick

Upon hearing my last story about my bad luck on eBay, an old riding partner of mine commented, "Damn, you've been shopping the X-Caliber for years. It's like your white whale!" That was good for a chuckle for both its irony and its truth. But as luck would have it, lady luck gave me a second chance. The exact same model bike came up for auction from a shop in Colorado. Right down to the same starting price and buy-it-now price. Again, fate was tempting me! Do I snatch it up for the buy-it price or take my chance getting it cheaper in the auction? The clincher was that the auction was to end while my family and I were on vacation. When my wife read my blog, she too couldn't believe I had come that close...again. Now, she too, had an interest in the cat-and-mouse game that I continued to play. In my head, I knew exactly what I was and wasn't willing to do for this bike. She really wanted me to 'just buy the damn thing and be done with it.' But that's just not my way. So we left for vacation and the time counted down-- zero bids three days left. On our last morning in Door County, before checking out of the hotel, we used the courtesy computer in the lobby. Still no bids. I had to be home by 8:30pm to snipe it at the last minute. On went our last day up north. We played mini-golf, swam at my favorite state park, did a little shopping and headed south to have some dinner and head home. On the way out of town, Lori suggested stopping at the hotel and using the computer to put a bid in, in case we didn't get home in time. No dice, someone was using the computer. We were 2/3s of the way home when Lori had another brain-storm: we stop at a hotel off the highway, run in and use their computer to quickly put in a bid. I hemmed and hawed at such a notion, but I pulled into the parking lot of a hotel I had no intention of staying at anyway. Lori ran in, logged on, and placed a bid, all under the curious eye of the front desk clerk. An hour and a half later we got home, unloaded the car, and logged on to find out...I (actually my wife) had landed my white whale. It was a good vacation.