Shameful Commerce

The Waterloo of my holiday shopping campaign was a ski outfit. A silky turtleneck, a kicky vest trimmed in fur, tailored sable ski pants with a five-inch inseam. The outfit was for a doll, 18 inches of mercantile genius. Her name was Nicki, and like all worthwhile women, she came with baggage. Accessories. She had a story. Nicki rode horses, worked on her father’s farm, fended off mean girls and trained guide dogs for the disabled. And she skied. Which meant that in addition to the doll, the only item my five-year-old daughter had requested for Christmas, I needed the ski accessories. Several days before the holiday, I realized that ­we had the ski gear—tiny poles, skis, boots and goggles, but not the ski wear. Nicki and all her goodies had been sold out for a month. She would be forced to schuss down the slopes wearing her tiny Western-themed mini skirt and eyelet blouse. My daughter would not tolerate this, the potential for frostbite to mar the dimpled knees of the doll. There was only one way to fulfill her holiday wish: the online auction.

A certain website has created an aftermarket for hope by way of online auctions. It’s not just shopping, it’s winning! In the old days, when something was sold out, it was gone. Now everything remains available, for a price. Shopping is a competitive sport. A player fights for the right to bleed the most currency. Refresh. Refresh. That button is the morphine drip of online bidding. The website has married the efficient money-shedding techniques of a night of casino gambling and a mugging, without the smoky buffet line or the blow to the head. It even has a hip name—social commerce. It sounds wholesome, like green energy, micro lending or flaxseed waffles. One is lured in by a rumor. A whisper about an implausible deal. A silver tea set smithed by Paul Revere for $150, plus shipping. An original Matisse from a pet-free and smoke-free home for $29. Then there are lesser victories; the door hardware or auto part for 50 percent off retail. The first item won is the gateway drug of online bidding. The victor returns again, drawn by the smell of prices below wholesale.

Nicki was made for the online auction world. She was the “Doll of the Year” for 2007, an ode to planned obsolescence. Officially retired in December, she was at a premium for the holidays. Presumably, on January first she left for Florida with her accessories where she’d play mahjong with the doll of 2006 and they’d try to get a hand of bridge in with the doll of 2003 who was forever going on about her rheumatoid arthritis, despite the fact that the only joint movement any of them have is a slight rotation of shoulders and hips. They’d sniff disapprovingly at the doll of 2008, who only comes with a skating outfit and tiny plastic skates (all still available), and not even one set of cowboy boots. They’d all sit around the computer and watch as their discontinued accessories rocketed up in price, hitting the refresh button with their tiny rubbery fingers.

Like any rookie, I made mistakes in my early attempts at auction. I placed the early bid, enjoyed the smug satisfaction of being the highest bidder—then found out all the action takes place in the final 60 seconds. Classic premature escalation. I assigned personalities to my competing bidders. That guy who swooped in during the final minute on that rice cooker with a bid twenty whole dollars higher than the previous one? A schmuck with a Napoleon complex, the type who bumps fists in lieu of a handshake. The “power seller” named “jellybeankween” who moved her bid up by fifty cents, (for a treadmill!) was a closet Nazi. And “twinsmom83”—the one who won the replacement taillight cover for my Subaru—well, she was clearly a whore.

I knew it was going to be a brutal battle for doll skiwear. Bidding began, the list of bidders longer than a football team roster. Increase bid. Refresh.Refresh. Idly, I noted when the price of the outfit passed the maximum I’ve ever paid for an outfit for my daughter, a fully jointed human girl significantly taller than 18 inches. I pride myself on never paying more than 10 dollars for her pajamas, thrift store purchases with holes and stains, but still I kept at it as the outfit passed the price of several of adult lift tickets. My daughter had painstakingly scrawled a letter to Santa asking for one damn thing. I was going to get it. And I did. I won.

After the battle frenzy dissipated, I was left with the horrifying reality of what I’d paid. My daughter’s college fund might be empty, but her doll was appropriately dressed for both skiing and the après-ski scene in Aspen. I closed the screen so I would not have to look at the accusatory figure I had just handed over to a stranger. PayPal is a cruel misnomer.

After my one-night stand of an auction, I was consumed with e-shame. I couldn’t tell anyone how much I’d spent. When the box arrived, I hustled it into the depths of the closet, a space deserving of drugs or porn. I removed the auction website from my favorites, erased the items I was watching, and logged out of social commerce for good. I resolved to only purchase from a brick and mortar store, to tender my money to an actual person. I lectured my children on commercialism, burning with shame, thinking of the tiny vest, the turtleneck the size of my palm.

In the end, I donated the doll and the outfit to a children’s charity, and on Christmas morning, my children and I joined hands, and with bells ringing, we began to sing––OK, that is not what happened. I wish that I had, that I could say that my daughter would have been just as pleased with a few pretty stones, a curved twig, a couple of cardboard tubes tied together with yarn. No, it was the doll and her ski accessories. She shrieked when she saw the box, her eyes as big as taillight covers. She tore the paper off and began the hunt for the ski equipment and outfit that she just knew Santa had brought. Nicki and my daughter were inseparable, skiing the bunny slopes of the couch cushions, down reclined dining room chairs and even the double black diamond trails of the basement stairs.

My cyberfleecing still pains me. January brought new budgetary resolutions. I’m pushing the value of rocks, sticks and cardboard tubes for the upcoming birthdays. But sometimes, when I see an ad for that addictive website, I remember Christmas morning. I close my eyes and picture my daughter in her thrift store pajamas, maneuvering her doll through a Stem Christie turn down the sofa arm. In my mind, I can still see my girl look at me and smile, before she turns to zip the vest up just a tiny bit more. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

Hilary Meyerson is a writer, mother, and recovering lawyer. She holds a BA in English literature from Middlebury College and a JD from the University of Washington. At work on her fi­rst novel, she has been awarded writers’ residencies at Hedgebrook and Caldera Arts. She lives in Seattle with her family and can be reached at hilarymeyerson@hotmail.com­. She no longer bids online.

~Hilary Meyerson