A decade ago, with a brand new baby Evan in the house, I declared that I needed to buy a fifth “Rodney Reindeer” since I had five children and four stuffed reindeer. As Doug and I do whenever one of us decides to do something ridiculous, he grinned and said, “Yes, dear.” He didn’t question the absurdity of my logic. He sat back and waited for the inevitable snafu.

I went to eBay and glanced to see how it worked. After a full minute of learning how to eBay, I put bids on a dozen different Rodney Reindeer auctions. It was only a few dollars each and I was certain that all of my first attempts at eBay would be outbid by an auction vulture at the last minute.

I won half of the auctions.

The packages began to arrive and I realized that it is important to pay extra close attention to the descriptions of auction items before bidding. The reindeer that arrived in the mail ranged from the regular handful size to reindeer small enough to fit inside the regular reindeer. By the time the mail stopped, I had two dozen Rodney, Rhonda and Ramona Reindeer.

I haven’t used eBay since.