Sniping

Many years ago as a Boy Scout, a favorite challenge for newcomers to Camp Karoondinha near Glen Iron, Pa was nighttime “snipe hunting.” There are supposedly 20 varieties of snipes worldwide but none that were ever found at our remote camp. That didn’t stop hundreds of “old-timer” scouts from exposing the “newbie” to the challenges of scary nighttime forest searches for them over the years. I was amazed to recently find that there are actually critters called snipes all related to woodcocks. They are amazingly swift wading birds and skilled in spearing unsuspecting invertebrates in the mud with sewing machine-like precision. The difficulty in hunting snipes actually gave us the term “sniper” used to describe military anti-personnel sharpshooters starting with the American colonial wars. According to Wikipedia this was largely facilitated by the multitalented patriot and inventor Ben Franklin. Colonial American snipe hunting was made possible by his invention of a firearm accessory consisting of a round pig hide tube containing two crude glass lenses etched with acid to make a telescopic crosshair sight. There is a new application of the term “snipe” or “sniping” that I’ve so far not found captured in any dictionary. It is frequently used to describe on-line computer buffs who stalk E-bay-type computer auction sites looking for bargains. Bids for items are placed online by hundreds of computer operators worldwide over the internet. The bidding often takes place leisurely over the course of a week or even ten days. It’s very common for the bids to hover initially at a few dollars for items worth hundreds. It is possible to bid remotely to raise your bid automatically up to your maximum predetermined limit when others bid against you. During the final seconds of bidding there are folks who wait until other bidders are lulled into complacency, certain of winning. Then they swoop in with a carefully calculated final bid that doesn’t give other unsuspecting folks time to react. This is called “sniping.” I guess it’s time to admit I’ve used this technique to capture a few items that I “had to have.” I’ve also lost quite a few “sure things” to other “snipers,” many using new automatically programmed last second computer bids. As you can imagine tension and blood pressures rise during these final seconds of bidding. One personal episode of terror especially comes to mind. I was enraptured by an E-bay listing of a new model digital camera that I “just couldn’t live without”. I was so sure of my strategy that I had my teenage daughter observe my deft last minute shrewdness. At the last seconds I was going to bid $4000.00…oops $400.00! You guessed it; I accidentally put an extra zero in my bid and froze in horror. Fortunately my daughter saved me with a few swift blurred key strokes and my winning bid was recorded as $400.00 not $4000.00. I couldn’t stand up for a few minutes and fortunately my daughter didn’t broadcast my embarrassment. I have had two other more important times in my life where I was sure I would be able to make last minute lifesaving sniping-type moves or actions to make things right. In both situations I was not able to carry out my last minute strategy for survival and was saved by other “unseen hands” to live another day. These two experiences along with, to a lesser extent, my E-bay experiences make me determined to not trust my last minute sniping skills. I want to be ready in advance for whatever may come my way and not have to trust my own feeble initiatives and timing at the last minute. It’s just too risky and I’m just too fallible.