A week or so ago I read this interesting blog post by Matt Walsh entitled "If you shop on Thanksgiving you are part of the problem." I thought he made some good points but mostly I wasn't terribly concerned because I was planning on spending the entirety of the day with family. There wasn't anything particular I was wanting to buy on Thanksgiving or Black Friday.
Yet.
You see, I've had my eye on a DSLR for awhile. Thanksgiving day I saw an offer at Wal-mart for a DSLR package that included two lenses, camera case, and 16 GB memory card for over $250 below the usual asking price. Now that's hard to pass up.
But I didn't really want to go out on Thanksgiving. Walsh's blog post was still ringing in my ears and this line, especially, seemed to play itself over and over in my mind:
"How appropriate, then, that a holiday created by our ancestors as an occasion to give thanks for what they had, now morphs into a frenzied consumerist ritual where we descend upon shopping malls to accumulate more things we don’t need."
I also have a lot of students who have to work Thanksgiving and Black Friday so it felt kind of cruel of me, their own teacher, to be among the group of people who make teenagers work on holidays. On top of all that, I felt some allegiance to my old man, who loved Thanksgiving more than anything. Certainly I couldn't dishonor him and his favorite holiday by hitting the sales just minutes after saying thank you for what I had been given.
So I resolved myself to wake up Friday morning and go get the camera. No big deal, right?
Thanksgiving night Greg and I were playing games with my brother and his wife. On their way out, about ten o'clock, they mentioned they might stop at the outlet mall that is practically in our backyard just to see what sales are going on. Mostly I like being around people and I like having fun so I told Greg we should go just to look and see if there was anything interesting. I caved.
The outlets were an absolute mess. We should have known purely by the amount of cars that we were in for a walking disaster. We entered American Eagle where the entire store was 50% off. It was a mad house. The line to try anything on was 20-30 minutes and the line to check out was at least that long, if not more. You couldn't even turn around in the store. People were acting like chimpanzees, screaming and beating their chests.
It took Greg all of about seven minutes to abort the freak out of there.
"I can't take this, Bonnie!" he exclaimed, "I'm going home!"
"You can't go home, we drove together!"
"I'll walk."
"Seriously?! You are going to walk home in the freezing cold rather than just stay and look around?"
"Yes." And he was off.
Which left me by my lonesome at 10:30 on Thanksgiving night fighting a mob of serious shoppers for a cheap pair of jeans. It wasn't pretty.
The whole thing ended up being too insane, even for me, and so I decided to just go home shortly after Greg had hightailed it out of there. Although the sales were great, the lines were not even close to worth it for things that I didn't particularly need or want.
I walked to the car and headed toward home. Then the idea dawned on me. As long as I was already out I might as well just hit up Wal-mart for that dumb camera and then come home. That way I wouldn't have to worry about it Friday and could just relax and enjoy the day. I was out already anyway. I turned around and drove on toward Wal-mart.
By the time I got to Wal-mart at 11:00 on Thanksgiving night I was feeling tired and ornery and ready to put the whole thing behind me. The electronics section of Wal-mart was exactly what you would expect it to be- pure chaos. People were rifling madly through shopping carts full of marked down merchandise and there wasn't a worker in sight anywhere. Finally I found a woman in a blue shirt trying to pretend like she didn't work there.
"Do you work here?" I asked.
"Yes. Shhh." She replied, averting my gaze and trying her best to look incognito.
"I'm looking for a Canon DSLR package that is on sale today."
"Check the carts" she said without even pretending to listen or care to what I had just asked her.
"You put $500 cameras in those carts?"
"Oh! It's a camera?"
"Yah." I showed her my ad.
She literally laughed in my face, "We sold out of that hours ago!"
"Hours?" That seemed a little dramatic.
"Oh yah. We opened at 6 pm. They were one of the first things to go."
"And you won't be getting any more?"
"Not on that sale."
"Not even tomorrow?"
"Nope. The sale was for today."
And just like that I walked out of Wal-mart empty handed.
So I guess that's where I disagree with the Matt Walsh post. I didn't want to go out on Thanksgiving night, I didn't want to buy anything. Out of pure interest I went to the outlet malls, and then out of a desire to avoid an inconvenience the next day, (and a little bit of panic that I would miss the deal) I went to Wal-mart. I did, in fact, miss out on the deal entirely because of my tardiness and left the store empty handed. I tried to stand up for some kind of cause and not go shopping on Thanksgiving and because of that I will be spending an extra $250 on my camera if I choose to buy it.
I admit, I was frustrated by all of this. I was frustrated that if I didn't get there right at 6 pm that I didn't stand a chance of saving $250. I was frustrated at myself for not just showing up at 6. Mostly, I was frustrated by the implication of Walsh's blog post that I need to stand up for a cause and sacrifice myself and my money in honor of Thanksgiving day. I don't at all believe that I am the problem, as Matt Walsh suggested, nor do I believe that the other shoppers who did get there at 6 pm and did get the camera deal are the problem. I believe Wal-mart is the problem. And Best Buy. And Kohls. And any other store that opened its door on Thanksgiving night. They didn't have to open on Thanksgiving. They could have ran their deals at 8 am on Friday morning, but they decided to open on Thanksgiving night and they decided to make teenagers work retail on Thanksgiving night and they decided to give ridiculous deals that any sane human being would have a hell of a time turning down for the cause of Thanksgiving. I didn't make the stores do it, nor do I agree with it, but I don't think it is a sin for me to save $250 at 6 pm on Thanksgiving night if that is an option for me. Certainly I wish the deal were available another time but if I find the savings too hard to pass up, I am not "part of the problem." I am a teacher, my husband is an actor. We are not rolling in money and so when there is a terrific deal on an item that we need (I realize this is an extremely relative term as our first world status means that all of our most basic and essential needs are well taken care of.) it doesn't seem fair that I should have to take up the cause of Thanksgiving and stay home while someone else gets the deal.
So, Matt Walsh, don't blame me. Blame K-mart and the mall and capitalism and consumerism and whatever other words you want to throw around, but human nature is that if someone does not have much money and there is a chance to save a lot of it by showing up at an inconvenient time, people will take that chance- Thanksgiving or not. If I don't show up to get the great savings someone else will (and did!) and then I am the one who loses. Stores could run that deal on a wedding day, a birthday, your sister's funeral and people would still show up because the savings are too great. We should stop pointing fingers at each other for wanting to save a few hundred bucks and instead place the blame on stores for being open in the first place.
Oh, and while we're on the topic of Black Friday deals, my best friend has got some terrific deals going on in her jewelry shop through this week. I posted this on Friday but I don't know that a lot of people in the world were reading blogs on Friday. Check out Amy's shop here- she sells very affordable and classy jewelry. Through December 6 all jewelry is 35% off with the code lifeofbon35.
Oh, and to really sweeten the deal we're giving away five $25 prizes to readers. Count, em FIVE! Winners will get a heart necklace and their choice of two sets of stud earrings. Only mandatory entry is to follow @miaearrings on Instagram. Entries thus far are very low so your chance on winning one of five sets is very high. Get entering!
Oh, and to really sweeten the deal we're giving away five $25 prizes to readers. Count, em FIVE! Winners will get a heart necklace and their choice of two sets of stud earrings. Only mandatory entry is to follow @miaearrings on Instagram. Entries thus far are very low so your chance on winning one of five sets is very high. Get entering!
(Giveaway open to U.S. residents only. All entries will be verified.)
