I was in Amarillo, Texas on November 26, 2012 which happened to be a Monday, and Andrew and I were thinking about what interesting things there are to do there in cowboy country. Andrew had read somewhere that the Amarillo Livestock Auction happens every Monday and suggested that it would be fun to watch. I had never been to an auction before so I thought it would be interesting too.

The experience did turn out to be interesting (see the photo I took). We sat in on the auction for about half an hour, and there were actually a few other spectators including a dad with his small son. Most of the people in attendance though were cowboys and dressed like it. It was really interesting to hear the auctioneer call out prices as the animals were brought out. I used to think the auctioneers just called out numbers, but actually in their chants there’s a lot of filler in between which was made up of nonsensical words or grunts. Listening to the auctioneer reminded me of Boomhower on “King of the Hill”...

Andrew told me that whatever I do to make sure I didn’t raise my hand at any time so that the auctioneer wouldn’t think I was bidding on something. I don’t think that should have been a real concern though since it seemed that not just the sellers but the buyers also had to be preregistered and the buyers were holding papers or cards of some sort. I was surprised that the going price of most individual cows seemed to be between $80 and $160, if I understood the pricing correctly. That seemed a little bit low to me, but then again I had never really thought about how much a cow is supposed to cost. There was one guy who was buying so many cows. I wondered when and how he would actually take possession of all the animals he bought. I don’t know this but I wonder if the people bidding have a chance to physically inspect the animals either before placing bids at the auction or before the transaction is final… 5 months ago