DANGER, DANGER! . . .

Tonight, I attend The Korean American League for Civic Action's Annual Benefit Dinner. This is all fine and good, but ...

THERE'S A SILENT AUCTION.

Now, I am not a crazy shopper. In fact, I mostly dislike shopping, unless it is for home goods. I can spend hours in places like The Container Store and BedBath&Beyond. Clothes and shoe-shopping, however, are the bane of my existence, and I need to go in, get my stuff, and flee in as minimal a time period as possible. Whenever feasible, I shop for these items online. Even the Coach store ... as much of a handbag and wallet sloot as I am, I can really only spend about eight minutes in Coach before going bonkers.

But silent auctions ... now THAT'S a whole different story. First of all, I am drawn to the idea of the "silent" aspect of it. Although experience constantly proves me wrong, I allow myself to be misled into thinking the browsing and the bidding will be silent, peaceful, calm. Of course, I'm always jostled by some unaware woman with lots of jangly bracelets that catch on my shirt-sleeve or scratch my upper arm, but like childbirth, such pain is easily forgotten. Secondly, because silent auctions always take place at charity or benefit events (and I really only attend the ones I believe in because I can't affort to go to any more than that), I delude myself into thinking: "any money I spend is for a good cause." This is how I ended up with a basketful of Cargo makeup, 75% of which I never opened. And finally, there is a small part of me that, for some stupid reason, thinks auctions are glamorous. I read about auctions and benefits in the Styles section of The New York Times. I see people in nice outfits and dangly earrings giving their resources for someone or something else's benefit. Sure, they're spending $25,000 a pop, but if you scale everything down to my level, my measly $200 seems glamorous too.

Of course, as I'm writing this, I realize I've left my checkbook at home, so I don't know if I'll even be able to pay to uphold my seat reservation. Sigh. Perhaps that will curtail my silent auctioning ability. Actually, I better just leave the plastic in the car, too, just to be on the safe side. I don't have room in my new place for more unused makeup.