Dancing with glass slippers

Dancing with Glass Slippers

By Ellen Key

March 23, 2008

I was an online auction virgin with too much confidence from watching auction television. At three o’clock AM I wandered in the virtual door and bid on forty-one items. Within a week I found I had “won” each bid. Who knew no one else was interested in three inch glass slippers I had bid on these one particular quiet night as the household slept and I could not. I now have a life paying for the slippers, answering the door as the mail man holds boxes carrying a delivery more familiar at an engineering business I had worked. Boxes come one, four, five and eight at a time. Sometimes three deliveries a day come to the house. I wish for the embarrassment to end. I have found the computer that can connect to the world, late at night, may not be a friendly thing.

As I figure how to pay without touching our private finances I choose a national store visa opportunity, one that people with undocumented residence can surely use without fear and with ease. I found the hidden costs have added to my bids, the high shipping costs of each item, some of which I believe are padded for the low bids that “won.”

I loaded this Visa with two-hundred dollars, thinking this should take care of the total cost of my night of ignorance. Using a visa to pay was easy; finding the high costs in shipping a dollar forty-cent dish totaling twenty-one dollars was my shock. My two-hundred dollars did not pay my responsibilities I had so easily agreed upon.

A rarely used established visa of my own was enrolled to continue paying my debt to the auction house. After four purchases I was notified nothing was accepted. I called this visa card company, they commented there was suspicious activity. I fesssed up on the activity and asked for my visa use again. It only lasted four more times; once again I was shut down. Embarrassed to confess again I did not make a return call to the visa company.

Back to the store to load another two hundred dollars on the new Visa, at a cost of four dollars, mind you I paid eight-dollars for the use of the store visa, a fee of eighteen-dollars per month was agreed upon to have the privilege of the store visa. The temporary card could not be relaoded, the real card would be in the mail. I know was getting three and four text messages to a cell phone that did not have text messaging as a package subscriber. Now, adding the cost of my bidding, the cost of the card fees and the fees of the cell phone notifications I was really racking up real money from my late at night innocent wandering into a national online auction experience.

Glass slippers, Cinderella’s slippers, romance of holding a three-inch beautiful glass piece only a child’s dream could hold precious and wonderful. As ten, twelve and fourteen slippers were added to the kitchen table, their beauty and romance vanished, the embarrassment of the late night decision was a huge burden on my shoulders.

I waited until my real card from the store visa arrived in the mail. It was delivered with four more boxes of slippers. While loading another two hundred dollars, I asked text messages not be used on a cell phone that was racking up costs at a rate of cents-per-letter, the paragraph messages were adding too much to my upcoming bill cycle. I did not understand this “real card” had a different number. The messages stopped only for the temporary card. In order to officially request to stop the text messages, for the cost of two-dollars I could talk to a person on the eight-hundred phone number and make my request. I requested only for the temporary card messages. The two-dollar fee was waisted for that would have been automatic. Now I have messages on my cell phone for the card recieved in the mail.

As I entered my membership to the online auction I deleted the two previous Visa card numbers. I now had trouble entering a third Visa card. Using the eight-hundred help line, at another two-dollar cost, I found I now was in “Fraud alert” at the online auction house. Minutes before adjusting my account I was awarded a star for the wonderful use of this online purchase account. To go from “you are a wonderful customer” to a fraudulant customer in a matter of minutes was beyond comprehension. I needed to wait two to three business days in order to make sure a dollar ninety-cent charge was accepted on the newest store visa account. Three days later I quickly paid my responsiblities, noticing a complaint had been registered by an agent wishing payment by personal check or money order. I did not read beyond my first page of agreed bids to notice this problem. I could have solved this as I stood in line to purchase the original temporary Visa in the store. Now, I needed another ride, I do not drive a car, to get a money gram. Meanwhile the fraud statement and the alert message bothered me. Would I loose my yellow star as a wonderful customer? The pressure of this one night innocent, no longer a virgin, auction bidder was heavy, very heavy to carry.

After three days I was able to use my permanent store card, quickly I used two-hundred dollars, keeping a seven dollar reserve, not enough for the eighteen dollar monthly charge. I then received text messages on my cell phone about the necessity to add more to my permanate account.

Again I added my personal rarely used visa card. I had only four purchases to pay. The band was lifted and now all payments are complete. I get pleasant “feedback” and complements for fast payment. The mail man comes daily and has asked “are you sure this was only one night of purchases? I should have kept a count of boxes.”

Looking at selling back the glass slippers on the same online auction I found hidden costs of their services, both as advertisement and purchases through visa. My husband decided to have a display box for the kitchen wall. “Now we can laugh at you for the rest of your life about your one night stand as an online bidder.”

Oh the choices we make as young and old innocent romantic fools. How many times in a life does one have to wish to be a virgin again?


My shoes are tied today. I noticed the laces are a little frayed. Do I exchange them for fresh laces or enjoy the familiar feel each time I attempt to tie them?