Monday, November 27, 2006

What I learned from Black Friday

Like many folks out there, I was mesmerized by the great deals in the ads that promised great savings at many stores on Black Friday. Being that I’m cheap but still enjoyed giving presents, this seems like a perfect day of shopping for me.

I planned my routes, had a list of exactly what to get from each store I was going to hit, and I was out of my house by 5am.

This is what I learned from my experience –
- 5am is too damn early for any kind of savings on crap you don’t really need.

- Most things that are on sale are crap. True, it’s insanely cheap, but its still crap.

- Things that are on sale that are not crap and are truly good deals will all be gone by about 5:30am.

- I really wanted to get one of these cheap huge LCD flat screen TVs. However, rabbit ears with a nice flat screen is kinda ghetto.

- As much as a lot of people shop, most of them don’t know how to shop. I saw people buy lots of things that weren’t on sale at 5am. It wasn’t even on sale, and a lot of the stuff I saw was on sale somewhere else. Listen, if you’re going to wake up that early, you better just be hitting the good stuff.

- I went to Wally world to get one thing. I hate Wally world and haven’t step inside one in over year, but I braved it to get a cheap DVD that I wanted. Of course, they ran out by the time I got there. Who the hell is buying up ‘Over the Top’? It’s about a trucker (Stallone) who’s trying to win an arm wrestling contest to help support him and his son. Shut up, it’s good.

- If you have a cart full of stuff, and it’s all for one child, you have a problem. This is not a show of how much you love your child. You’re not doing the kid any favors by getting them everything on their list. The kids don’t know any better when they’re making the list. You should, as a parent, know better than to give a kid everything they want.

- Buy your children age appropriate toys. A laptop or iPod for a 10 year old is not appropriate. Here’s a secret for ya. They want it just so they can say they have one to their friends.

- If you want to see some very unhappy and miserable looking people, look around on Black Friday around 7am. They all look like the zombies from Dawn of the Dead. This of course is why I go. To image that I was trapped at the mall with lots of zombies. Good times.

- The only Christmas list I managed to get a lot of stuff for is my own.

- After my shopping trip I had to come home and take a shower. I know I went voluntarily, but all the consumerism made me feel dirty.

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