Quitting the Quibid: A Junkie's Confession of a Week Long Gambling Addiction

There goes the perfect title for a book. However, I hardly have much to write on the subject.

...or maybe I do. I never know when I start a blog/story/poem/etc. how long it'll run. I always hope that it'll be short & sweet, but I'm verbose, I talk a lot...sue me! Anyhoo, this is a tale of my addiction, and my ability to quit while I was ahead.

Well, Quibids entered my world inauspicious enough. One night while my mother was watching the news at a level only reserved for people at a Black Sabbath concert, being held on an airport runway as 1,000 fighter jets fly-overhead, with fireworks cackling in the background. While I took a moment to wipe the blood from my bleeding ears, I picked up the sound of a segment of a story about buying iPads for mere pennies. Pennies?!? I quickly thought, "bullshit," and forgot it from my short term memory. But oh, how you never know how somethings never really go in one ear and out the other. Sometimes, random things get lodged amongst the cobwebs and ear wax en route to the other side and decide to stay there deep in the crevices of your brain until...

You're cruising in your car, and out of the radio comes a song. The melody is vague, and you're not sure you've heard it before, but as soon as the singer starts singing, you realize you know all the lyrics, yet...you still don't know what song it is. So you wonder, "How the hell do I know this song? "

Or you're watching Jeopardy or some other trivia show, and they say, "a kind of cheese made from ewe's milk." And you say out loud, "What is pecorino?" And then you're like, "What the fuck is a pecorino? Have I ever eaten pecorino? Where would I get pecorino? Why would I know that answer? Where did I get that from?" But you knew it. You learned it somehow. Well, when I chanced upon the Quibids again. I knew it wasn't the first time I had heard about it, but thanks to the memory of my mother's loud tv, I remembered where I knew it from.

So a few days later, I was reading some random article, and again I saw a link on the side of the screen regarding a person who won an iPad for a few bucks, and I'm like "how the hell?" So instead of clicking on the link (not trying to get any viruses), I googled this "quibids" thing, and went to the website.

I sat there looking at my screen for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out what the hell the "blips" were, and the clocks, and why the hell everything kept moving around. This surely wasn't ebay. But since I'm not a dumb girl, I was able to get the gist of this thing. I figured out that you have to purchase "bids" to bid on the items you want to win, however, just because you're the clock is winding down, doesn't guarantee that you'll be the last bidder, and the eventual winner, unlike ebay. Here, if you're the last bidder, but someone manages to get their bid in at the very last second, it resets the clock 15 seconds, so you get to bid again (hence the blips were the changing of hands, if you will, from one bidder to the next). Here is where they get you. But I wasn't about to get got, so just kept watching...on the first day.

The second day, watched some more before I dedcided to throw my hat into the ring to start bidding. I erroneously assumed that you'd only have to pay for the amount of bids you'd want to use which ran about 60 cents per bid, so I figured I'd buy about 5 bucks worth, and play with that. Ehhhhnt...wrong! You have to buy bid "packages," which weren't cheap. :( But since I have a sucker's spirit, much like that deaf mama of mine (love her, really I do) I "invested" in the cheapest package. I dropped $27 on it, and was rewarded with a whopping 45 bids. I knew from watching that 45 bids could go pretty quickly so I decided that instead of trying to win an "item" off the bat, I would try to win some more bids which come in packages of 15, 25, 50, 100, 150, and 250.

The first one I won was a package of 25 bids. Yesssss! I could feel the adrenaline. I won them for a mere sum of one dollar, but ended up shelling out another $2 for a "processing fee." Dammit! But that brought my bid tally to 68, since I shelled out 2 of my original bids to win the 25. I knew I wanted more, I could feel the pangs of success roll through me, and i wanted more bids...so I set out stalking an even bigger prize: 100 bids!! I placed four bids to get them, but eventually I won. I paid $1.21 for these, but the damn $2 processing fee, but I felt vidicated, armed with enough bids to warrant a real purchase. But what would I get?

I saw myself lusting after electronics that I previously had no real or immediate desire to own: iPads, camcorders, flat screen tvs, external hardrives, margarita mixers! Literally, like a kid in a candy store, or a woman in a shoe store, or a man in an electronic store, that serious!!

So I set after a small-ish prize, a waterpik. You know, something only a geek like me would really want. It's not like I needed a waterpik, I've done just fine with floss alone, and my teeth are still pretty pearly see:



Nonetheless, that day I VOWED, I was getting this waterpik because, well, I wanted it. It only took me four bids, and that thing was MINE!!! (Oh, and check out the price I won it for...$0.38!) Whoo-hoo! See that, kimmysan...well that be me! :)



And with that, everyday I'd go back trying to win something. However, the problem was that I'm kind of a frugal bidder. If I don't win in 2 or 3 tries, I give up. I once went to Vegas, spent lost 15 bucks and didn't gamble again because I kept losing.

Here on quibids I was winning!! I didn't win anything the next day, though I did try hard for this 19" flat screen (I wasted 12 bids on it!), but the following day I won...



...and I ain't even got a Wii. I'm a hot mess, yes I know, but how could I pass that up...for $0.34, did you see that?? Yeah, suckaaaaah! I wasted a few more bids here and there, and didn't know what I wanted next, but then I realized all the "here and there's" left me with only about 40 bids left. So I was going to save it to reel in a BIG prize, like an iPad, a laptop or a camera, which can take forever to win, so I had to be careful not to bid too early. BUT, I forgot that I promised the boyfriend that I'd win him an iron, and I thought, well okay, "How hard can it be to win an iron, if I'd already won a Wii??"

Well, let's say, that was my last forray into the bidding wars. :( His iron took me 28 bids to win! And the iron cost me more than my Wii & Waterpik...combined, yet was worth less. Dammit...that's what happens when you love people. Gosh!! So with the baby amount of bids left to my name, I tried to win more bids to avoid paying again for a decent stash, but I soon lost those too. So with a sad face, and dejected heart I decided to hang up my hat.

I quit cold turkey, not even going to the site watch the winnings. It made me envious. I wanted more bids, and I knew had the itch of a junkie. I knew I could win so much more, and the click of the mouse was so tempting, taunting. But I see how people could throw away their money with no problem, but I knew I had to stop. And so just like that I quit the quibids. It's sad really. I miss it. I would go back, but only if someone would gimme $27 more dollars for another start up.

Ummm, can you spare a buck?? Please. :(