As you are no doubt aware, this Friday is homecoming at my alma mater, the Cistercian School for Wayward Boys. Gimme an H! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What’s that spell?! (Trust me. It was hysterical back in 1988.) Anyway, in conjunction with the homecoming game, which will pit the Hawks of Cistercian against, um, another team of football players (I follow Cistercian’s athletic endeavors religiously), the school will hold a silent auction. As a distinguished alumnus, I was asked to donate an item on which the faithful might bid. Here’s the official description of the “item” I came up with:
“A year’s subscription to D Magazine — hand delivered to your house by Tim Rogers, the editor of the magazine. Tim will make arrangements to meet you at your door at a time of your and his convenience, whereupon he will give you a quick behind-the-scenes tour of that issue, perhaps explaining how the cover was shot, etc. Caveat: the winner must live within the 635 loop (because Tim ain’t making 12 trips to Prosper in a year’s time). If the subscriber lives farther afield, the subscription will be hand-mailed by the editor, accompanied each month by a personal note written lovingly to the subscriber on a manual Royal Arrow typewriter, just like the one Hemingway once used.”
Now then. When several of my co-workers learned about this, they mocked me. “You’re losing your hair!” they said. “And, besides, no one is going to bid on that stupid item. No one likes you.” It’s a supportive work environment up here at D Magazine. So I set an over-under on the dollar amount that my auction item will sell for. They all took the under. Wagers were waged.
Here’s where you come in. I’m not asking you to bid on the hand-delivered subscription because you like you and want to meet me. Quite the contrary. We all know you hate me as much as my co-workers do. And as much as you don’t want to see me win this bet, you know it’ll be a total pain my ass to drive over a magazine to your house every month for a year. So stick it to me.
Not going to the game? I’m sure they’d accept a bid by phone or e-mail. The school: 469-499-5400. And Robin Springer (RSpringer_at_sagiss.com) is the auction chair.
