Short Stories, Long Odds

In my developmental years, I spent a great deal of time decrying the American fascination with consumption. Why do we feel like we need so much stuff, I wondered. Who would want a job working in an office and slaving away for an amount of money that could never make up for the time you lost in the giant corporate machine, etc. I didn’t need new clothes, I didn’t need things.

So it was as much a surprise to me as anyone when I was shaking Diana awake at 5:11 AM to go on the immense Black Friday bargain hunt.

I blame her, because she found a 1 gig sd card for my new cell phone for like three dollars and a cheerio and after that I was all excited.

Did you find any new bargains, I would ask.
Yes, she would say. We can get a bluetooth headset for nine dollars at Radio Shack. We can get gifts for our families at these fabulous stores, if only we get up before the sun the day after Thanksgiving.

Once, I reviled such activites. This time, I thought to myself, I can store documents from my job on my phone with that card. I can set up a VPN annd do all of my document editing on the go.

Plus, my ringtones can be clever mp3’s, like Bananaphone.

So up we got. We got to Best Buy just before six, roughly an hour after they’d opened. I’ve never seen so many people there.

Here you can see a blurry photo of angry people in line at Best Buy,

Here you can see a blurry photo of angry people bargain hunting at Best Buy.

And again, here are some angry people, and they want XBox 360’s.

We got our bargains.

After we left Best Buy, we ended up at target, where there were entertaining things to buy, like:

Entertaining crackers

A pimp hat you can put on your tree.

My wife is lovely but not for sale.

Diana found an inflatable Santa for ten dollars at Big Lots, but I sent her this picture to let her know I could not approve of festive lawn balloons.

Then there was a tree in our yard.