Magic Carpet Ride

Last Friday we attended the American Women’s Association (AWA) Spring Carpet Auction. What does a night like that entail you ask?

Before we get to the moral of the story, we’ll give you a little background on the AWA. When we arrived I was told to join the AWA as it’s a great group of 1,100 women. The group has various committees to suit anyone’s interests. Committees range from tennis, to quilting, to beading, to local tours. On the application they ask the question "how do you want to be involved?" Of course ‘type A Amy' checked the all of the above box. Flash forward a few weeks where I interviewed for a board position and six days later was asked to join the board to serve in the role of the Social Chair. My first board meeting was this past Tuesday.

So back to the carpet auction. The event is hosted by Hedger’s Carpets and includes an evening of wine, food and fine carpets. We decided to attend as a chance to meet new people and maybe find something to cover of our hard marble floors. We also talked another couple from our building into joining us. Upon arrival we scoped out the carpets and marked a few we liked, one of which we both loved.  We are not rug connoisseurs so we were surprised to see the majority of the rugs weren’t Persian (as that’s all we knew,) but from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and India. The owner of Hedger’s was the auctioneer and had a great comedic personality. He had a way with the crowd (which was about 40 people) and he also had the talent of quietly ignoring obnoxious, intoxicated bidders and their self-determined ‘great bids.’

As the night progressed, Raegen found himself as the new owner of quite a few carpets, including the one we really liked. His last bid was on a rug that was not so pretty. (As Mama S likes to say “but their mama thinks they’re pretty.”) Needless to say when the rugs arrived on Monday, the ugly one was still ugly but the others were fantastic. 

You might ask yourself what is the moral of the story? As the Dutch proverb says, “even if a monkey wears a golden ring, it is and remains an ugly thing.”  Obviously this story has a happy ending as we are able to exchange the not too pretty carpet for one that better suits our taste.

Happy Trails,

Amy & Raegen