Last night - Thanksgiving night - my son and I drove to the local Best Buy as he’d wanted to purchase some video game. I’d forewarned him the store may not be open that late (8-ish pm) - as I’d overheard the Piggly Wiggly Manager that morning saying “yeah… we’re shutting down at 3pm too.”
Prior to our trip, I’d started the car to let it warm up - a first in a long time - as we’ve been blessed with Al Gore Global Warming temps. (Thanks Al… also… thanks for the internet - I kinda like it.)…
En route, we passed 7 closed fast food joints (Mickey D’s, Sonic, Arby’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendys) - two closed grocery stores… and the only thing we saw open was Quick Trip and the liquor stores..
As we inched closer to Best Buy - we saw as many as thirty cars in the parking lot. Yeah! He can get his goofy video game - and life will be good.
Pulling even closer - we saw the windows to the store to be black. “I bet they’ve just got the windows just covered up because tomorrow is that big shopping day” Maynard chimed. “Yeah, prolly.”
We pulled in. Holy shit. It was already below 30 degrees (8pm-ish) and was supposed to get down to 22 degrees. The store WAS closed - but there were no less than 14 tents setup - neat in a line - waiting for the 4am Black Friday opening so they could save big bucks on gadgets for themselves, and for Christmas presents… and some… probably even to purchase and then resell online later at a profit.
I have yet to meet one of my New Years Resolutions (“I will sleep outside at least one night this year.”) - but - I remembered the Friday night in June when I’d won at the boat, celebrated a little too much en route to that win - and hunkered down around 3am in the checkenginelight for the night in the casino parking lot. So, at that, I considered my “I slept out” intact - and I had no want to be the 14th tent in line and freeze my ass off.
Would you sleep 8 hours in a tent at 22 degrees to save $100 on a PlayStation III? To quote my beloved stepson “Not no‘s, but hell‘s no‘s.”. Would you toss and turn and shiver and quiver 8 friggin’ hours so you could save $200 on a 54” HD TV? Me neither. Hell, I’d spend the same amount but settle for the 47” one.
For grins, I asked my buddy Wikepedia about “Black Friday”. It’s named so, because it’s was hinted by ABC World News Tonight to be the day retailers actually go from being in the red - to being in the black. It’s earliest traced back to 1975... Wiki said “it just ain’t so” about the profit/loss thing.
It does unofficially signal the beginning of the Christmas season however. Lights are starting to go up allover town. We even have a dude at work that began playing Christmas songs a month ago.
It’s too early for me. Don’t gimme wrong, I LOVE CHRISTMAS. We all get to be kids. (Reminds me of another Resolution “I shall put up a Christmas Tree this year” --- it just ain’t felt right the last few years… would the time I litup the flashlight and carried it down to the basement to work on the furnace count like the overnighter @ the casino did?)…
Sony laptop computers, cut to $399.99 from $749.99... GPS devices from TomTom for $119.99... a leather massage recliner for $298.88, after a $50 mail in rebate. The original price was $799.… a Polaroid 42-inch LCD HDTV for $798... a $79.87 Sony digital camera.
A Thanksgiving night in your own bed, off work, no alarm set - temp roughly 68 degrees - priceless.
No comments:
Post a Comment