Going Once. Going Twice.

What do you do when you have exactly one day in New York City? This was the question I faced after running the NYC marathon. I had burned two days preparing to shuffle through the five boroughs and now I had about five minutes to enjoy the rest of the trip. I considered all the possibilities: the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Vessel, a Broadway show, museums, a skate at Rockefeller. There were so many things to do. But I didn’t need to worry. My Man had a plan.

We would skip all those iconic sites. He had already seen them and had discarded them as unworthy to be viewed again. I suppose that when you are Italian, nothing is as good as Italy. Everything else seems a bit like copy infringement. Pizza anyone? We went to the auction houses.

In my superficial research of things to do in NYC, the auction houses did not make any of the recommended tourist stops. I can assure you there are good reasons for that. There is nothing there you can afford and more importantly, there is nothing there you would possibly want. This is not the small, town friendly auction with the fat guy in a cowboy hat rattling off prices at a mile a minute. No, these are the very fancy auctions where everyone goes all dressed up and there is friendly banter. Actually, most people do not bother to go. Most people bid online or use one of the helpful agents to bid for them. This adds an important layer of intrigue to the whole thing. No one wants to admit to bidding on Winston Churchill’s porn collection.

I have watched such an auction. I can tell you that you will want to scratch your eyeballs out. It is worse than watching golf. Not only that, but unlike a proper auction it lacks the smell of BBQ in the background or deep fried funnel cakes. These take place in an office building not a farm. There are no duallies hauling off tractors or trailers full of cows. The whole thing is so sterile it could be held in an operating room.

I don’t really understand the appeal of the auction format. My one experience partaking in an auction was when I was about 9. My brother’s Boy Scout troop did a cake auction. This meant that each of them made a cake and then they all brought their cakes to the elementary school gym where all the parents sat around buying the cakes. This is a small town version of a pyramid scheme.

I, being the competitive person that I have always been, insisted that I wanted to “win” a cake. Most of the cakes were selling far out of the price range agreed upon with Dad. So we were down to the ugliest cake possible. The cake looked so deranged it was indeterminable what exactly it was supposed to be. But I and another little boy were not letting up. I am sure that our 25 cent counterbids were tedious to every adult in the room. I did eventually win the battle when the boy’s mother cut him off. I felt very successful and also very bad when the little boy cried about losing the cake he had made. All of it was so stressful that I have never participated in another auction. I don’t even try for the lottery.

Not My Man. My Man loves an auction. He follows auctions like most men follow the sport scores checking in morning and night on early bids or final sales price. He is not particular: paintings, sculptures, jewelry, ceramics, furniture, mirrors, lamps, fossils, meteorites, artifacts, cigars, lighters, memorabilia, history, comics, coins. You name it. He knows the price. This is not casual. He does not follow one auction. He follows them all. He swears he does it in the name of business but given the number of objects that show up at the house, this is not all business. This is dignified hoarding.

Some might look at my running shoe collection and accuse me of being a collector as well, but I disagree. I buy my shoes new without someone else’s bad luck haunting them. I do not keep my shoes when I am done with them like a trophy. Shoes cycle in and shoes cycle out. Nothing stays for sentimental reasons and I have no delusions anyone wants to pay for my sweat.

The auction house we went to will remain unnamed. However, since they are about to have a very public auction, I feel no compunction about offering them a little bad publicity. The stated purpose of our visit to see two fossils for sale. One was a baby triceratops.

Our host, who I was later informed was not a paleontologist, told us, The triceratops was three years old when it died.

Really? I am no expert on fossils. I was not about to debate species or genus. However, I am a doctor. So when someone tells me they have done diagnostic pathology on a creature that died millions of years ago and is now a rock, I am skeptical.

But that was not all. He insisted on what a great specimen this was. He went on to fawn over his precious piece as if it was in fact a live baby panda not a dead dino.

Again, I am not a dino expert. I have undergone exposure therapy though. This means I have an unnatural, excessive proximity to dinosaur bones compared to the average human being. What I saw were a few dinosaur bones and a lot of bones that looked like copies of bones. Basically, I was looking at a clay art project that also wanted to be a triceratops. The only thing this man was selling was bullshit and we weren’t even on the farm.

If you don’t know dinos and you aren’t sure how to tell if it is terrible, here is a suggestion: look around. If all the art is terrible, then maybe the dino is too. Spoiler alert: the art was worse.

While My Man and this con artist discussed natural history, I moved onto the art. The auction is to be held soon so there were at least 12 people milling about discussing how to arrange the displays. Much like dinosaurs, modern art exposure has been a side effect of association with My Man. He likes it while I just wonder about the mental health of the artists. For the life of me I could not figure out what might have inspired these paintings. Drugs? Aliens? Satanic rituals?

Think I am kidding? Check out this fine piece.

Not only do I wonder about the artist but I also wonder about the buyers. One piece I looked at could only be bought for a small child to decorate an elaborate playroom in their third home but then it occurred to me, for $750,000 someone might actually buy that and hang it where guests could also see it. I wish I could be there when they explain their obsession with mice dressed as Victorian drag queens.

None of the art was interesting but it was selling for stupid prices. So yet once again, I questioned my life choices. I spent thousands of dollars and a decade becoming a doctor to make a living that would never allow me to afford art. I had worked for months training for a race then paid good money to run the race that I was in no way going to win. I would garner neither fame nor money. Yet some guy puts a floaty around a step ladder and gets paid a million dollars for it.

Bet you thought I was kidding.

Perhaps I should go back to the cake auctions. The baking expertise was on par with the art: childish and incoherent. At least it tasted good and I could afford it. I left satisfied. Worth every penny of $9.50.