I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t mean to become one of the mad women dashing for bargains during Black Friday. But Mark noticed some Cute Things in the Younker’s circular (which I cannot expound upon without ruining the kids’ Christmas), and I reluctantly agreed to go. We purchased six Cute Things, and the Cute Things were so large we had to take them to the car. Our mistake, of course, was seeing the pure joy on the faces of the women heading into Younker’s and the faces of the ones we passed on the way out all bright and happy as if they’d just found the bargain of the century. They piqued our curiosity and made us return to Younker’s to see if there were other Bargains we would have been stupid not to purchase.
It was also by accident that when I returned to the madness that was Younker’s I found myself getting into the spirit of things, searching for bargains. In no time, we discovered that Dad needed That Thing and Mom That Other Thing and won’t Jay look nice in that? As we were debating who needed what, I noticed two ladies holding up shirts and asking their friends whether they husband would look good “in this?” And because they were right there with us, Mark and I soon found ourselves providing opinions to absolute strangers, saying things like, “I really like my Columbia stuff,” or, “I got one of those for my brother-in-law a few years ago and he liked it.” This isn’t normal behavior for me. What had happened?
To make matters worse, after we found a few more Things, we discovered a heap of comforters labeled “alternative down” for a mere $19.97. I soon found that everyone around me was sorting through all the Full/Queens to find the treasured King-sized comforter. To better compete against these other players, I piled onto the floor by a wall the other Things we’d found so that I could use two hands to look through the pile of comforters. After five minutes of searching I found one Twin comforter and felt like holding it up and announcing that I had found “THE LAST TWIN!” But I had no time for that, I had a King comforter to find, and who cares about everyone else during these frantic times?
Ten minutes must have gone by in fevered activity as Mark and I moved boxes and sorted through dozens of Fulls/Queens only to sigh in disappointment with a couple of other women and men suffering the same fate. We picked up our pile of Things feeling disappointed but wondering if perhaps there was a pile of comforters somewhere else! With renewed vigor, we headed towards the bedding area and ran into the wife of my high school football coach. She hugged me and looked around in near exasperation saying she’d only been working at Younker’s a couple of days and “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.” I suggested that the sport of shopping had taken on a new dimension since the economy had dragged on for so long, that people were hungry for the best deals and Younker’s seemed to have some. She mumbled something else, shook the worrisome look off her face and asked if there was anything in particular Mark and I were looking for. I said, “No. And that’s the problem. We just keep finding stuff we need. Or that somebody else might need. Or want.”
We continued on with our pile of Things, which was soon embellished with a game for one of the kids (or maybe somebody else, who knows?!), and two Memory Foam pillows that we grabbed for reasons we soon forgot. Nearby, Mark found a shirt he liked, so that was added to the pile. I found some reusable hand warmers for $4.97 that Mark said may not work very well, but for that price, who cares?
And then we were in line for the second time. This time, we noticed a flyer on the counter and as we looked through it—to make sure we weren’t missing any other bargains—we found two coupons, one for 20% off items that weren’t “door busters” and the other for $10 off purchases of some dollar amount (which I was confident we’d exceeded). We tore the coupons out of the circular and waited happily with our load of Things, only too cheerful to stand in line for ten minutes to save all the money we were surely saving. The clerk finally rang up our order, found a way to use the $10 off coupon but said everything else we were buying was a Doorbuster and therefore not eligible for the 20% off coupon. But it didn’t matter–we had saved a ton just being there!
On the way out of Younker’s for the second time with our second load of Things, I realized I had become one of Them, one of the shoppers who’d gone out on a fairly undefined quest for Things and had struck gold. I found myself grinning from ear to ear with my bags of things and nearly floated out to the car. Five minutes later, as I pulled into our driveway, I wanted to honk my way up the driveway and flaunt my purchases in front of my neighbors. This is not me.
Inside, as we unloaded Things and sorted Things into piles, we analyzed our efforts and decided we had done well. Still, there were more Things to find and we were only too glad to participate in Cyber Monday. In fact, I spent hours shopping online this week and soon found it wasn’t nearly as fun as Black Friday. Some Things people wanted were already no longer available online, yet I couldn’t see the faces of the people who had beat me in purchasing those Things. There were no smiling people, either, no wading through piles, no standing in line, no sense of victory when I got the good deal.
Indeed, next year, I will be participating in Black Friday with renewed vigor because it’s more fun than shopping online. And people better watch out because I have become quite the competitor in pursuit of Things.
OMG. Amy you had me laughing so hard with the Black Friday thing, my dogs were in a panic!