Vic Socotra

16 June 2008

Reserve Not Met

I have a chance to purchase the death certificate- the one with the date left blank for the owner's convenience. I had not been to the “motors” section of eBay since that wonderful tipsy evening when I purchased a 1973 SLK-350 using a new program called "Sniper," which tracked the bidding on the vehicle and swooped in at the last second to make the winning bid.

That was really where this all started, in 1973, when the Arabs announced that they had a corner on the market in oil, and that the West would dance to its tune, or shut down their cars. I blame all the Administrations since for what has befallen us since, and when I topped off the car with high test this weekend, it was $4.27 a gallon.

It is less than Evian bottled water, perhaps, but it is getting to the point where it would be cheaper to pour vodka directly into the tank and eliminate the middle-man.

Pair the long-simmering fuel crisis with the rise of the Internet, and tools like Sniper that turn whim into grim fiscal reality, and here I am, at the crossroads of energy and possibility. Naturally, I had not full considered what I was doing when I installed the software, and when I rose the next morning, I discovered that it had worked exactly as advertised.

As I snored, my on-line Avatar continued to work, obligating me to a binding financial contract I would have to deal with over my coffee and eggs.

It was a lovely car, no doubt about that, but it presented a couple challenges. First, I did not have the money. Second, it was in Pennsylvania. The car was moreover an antique, and no loans are made on those sorts of things.

I went about the usual stuff you do with an old car. I replaced the original button-operated AM radio with something modern. Then I bought new tires, since the old ones were at least five and probably ten years old and doubtless dry-rotted, though the tread was fine. I chunked a grand at the American Service Center to make it compliant with Virginia inspection.

I thought I was in pretty good shape, until I happened to be driving down Washington Boulevard with the Invisible Girlfriend on one of her visits. We both smelled raw gas at about the same time. She looked over and said I probably shouldn't smoke in the car, not that she minded going up in a spontaneous conflagration, but it would ruin the paintjob.

That did it.

The marque had been what led me to the car. It made a certain twisted sense. The regional Mercedes dealership in easy walking distance of Big Pink, and that, in turn, was an easy walk to the Metro. It seemed practical and compelling. I traded the 350SL in on the little SLK-350, a neat gently-used car that was less breathtaking in price than its bigger cousins, and really fun and really reliable. The salesmen were regretful about the pittance they could give me on the trade-in on the 350, but face facts, my friend, there is no market for this machine, only the odor of gasoline and trouble.

I realized in short order that a two-seat sports car did not suffice for the business I had to do, and that, in turn led to the CLK-500, a fire-breathing gently-used four seat silver ragtop that, even at a deep discount, was about twice what I had ever paid for a motorcar. The realization of that, and some other pressing financial matters, made me realize that I could be on a Vespa, buzzing from Big Pink to the office for peanuts.

Part of the equation was parking. In the garage below the office, the pillars of the garage necessary to maintain the structural stability meant the slots were narrow, and quite unforgiving. The good places were normally still available at the time I reported for duty, but heaven help you if you had to go somewhere in town for a meeting that was not on the Metro Line. If there was a place left in the garage when you got back, it was likely to be one in which the egress was best done with the top down and a bold leap from the driver's seat.

I suffered three major dings to the car, two of them self-inflicted, and a major bill from the body shop to have them bumped out and painted over. The Merc was happy again, though I really hated the garage, knowing the ball-peen hammer would begin to fall again, ding by ding.

When my division moved to occupy the offices of a company we had acquired across the intersection of Fairfax Drive and Glebe, I drove down into the new garage with trepidation. Since the whole block is hollow now, the concrete pillars and four levels were a maze, blocked haphazardly with chain link fences to separate office, hotel and condo parking. Then I realized I was even closer to Big Pink. I tried walking it, and if I had an extra forty minutes each way, I could do the commute on Shank's Mare, a first. Hell, I could even purchase a bicycle, as the Judge pointed out.

There still were the meetings all over, and driving made sense, though I realized the gas prices were starting to drive people to accept- I mean really accept- the fact that teleconferences were a perfectly fine way to do business.

I analyzed the driving we were doing and it just didn't make sense. One of our ace salesmen lived in Gainesville, down by the old battlefield at Brandy Station, and was frequently in meetings at our facility out in Maryland. It boggled the mind to be spending that much time on the road. On a smaller scale, I found myself doing three-cornered trips from Big Pink to the Office, to Fairfax, Chantilly and the District, all in one day.

At $2.50 a gallon, I didn't mind spending my money to get around. At twice that, the bills for local travel were really starting to be a pain in the ass. It was enough to think about claiming local mileage against the company, which is only slightly less painful than having a root canal.

I should stop trying to write in the morning and walk, I know that. But the concept of the scooter had begun to eat at me. Except for the idea of buzzing down the street at Rolling Thuder time, with all those snorting bikes and me looking like a character out of The Return of the Pink Panther.

Even a big bike will deliver fifty miles a gallon, and would get me to work as fast as the Merc. The top is always down. There is no problem with parking. I checked the local Harley dealer, and the company web-site to check prices. Breathtaking. Some of them cost more than a brand new Prius.

That is not a cost-effective means of saving a couple bucks on gas.

I checked eBay for the first time in almost four years- well, the first time to the "motors" section, since the 350SL debacle. I had been a big winner in multiple auctions for the vintage clip-on bow ties that I bought to accommodate the new job. Those have proven to be very fuel efficient.

That is how I came to the realization of what has happened to the economy. My God, are there some nice bikes out there. The toys are all coming out of the garages. I bounced around the country looking at them: choppers, classics, cruisers. Big Hogs and little pigs. I thought I would keep my searching to "low miles." I have had the experience of cleaning up other people's hobby projects.

I stuck with Harley, since the marque is a powerful talisman. I looked for "soft tails," since they look cool. There was one in Severn, Maryland, and it had exactly 1100 miles on the odometer. Powder black coating on the important parts. Stark. Handsome.

It would look fabulous with the recently completed restoration on the Little Black Truck. I made a tentative tap on the keys. I bid a hundred bucks up on the ten grand offer on the screen. I was outbid before I could complete the confirmation. I realized I was dealing with a robot, programmed to meet and exceed any competitive offer up to some unknown limit. I tapped again, with the same result.

I got to twelve thousand before I sighed and realized it was not to be. I wandered off to do something else, and the auction expired while I was gone.

"Reserve not met" was what the closed auction said, and I made a bid on a yellow low-rider out in Ashburn. It was an insultingly low offer, but the auction did not close for several hours, and I went to dinner with Jiggs, Mrs. Hitler, The Coach and her partner, the Formerly Ranked Player. It was a delightful evening.

When I got back upstairs, I checked on the yellow bike. There had been no additional offers above the insulting one I had made. My robot had been fully prepared to rise automatically to something less demeaning, and no one had challenged me. The Offeror had withdrawn the machine from competition in a huff. "Reserve Not Met."

But there was something else. A Second Chance offer on the 100th Anniversary black bike. The winner had welched. The offeror- and I went around the rose bush several times to ensure that it was not a spoof e-mail and a fraud- was willing to split the difference on the former high bid and my more modest one.

I am going to have to think about it. No legal obligation, since I did not win the auction. I don't have the money, either, but the the credit crunch hasn't hit here yet. Besides, Tim Russert keeled over this week at the ripe age of 58. Carpe Diem, you know?

Of course, I don't know how to ride the thing, and will have to pass the Virginia riders certification before I could hit the road.

I might be a little in front of myself, again, but that would not be unexpected.

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