The Madness of the after-Thanksgiving sale..

Now, I admit. This is a big case of a pot calling the kettle black. In the past, I have been up and running at 5 am and earlier, to get in time to take advantage of the remarkable discounts offered on a handful of electronics at various stores, during that huge sale on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Yet, I have to say, for all the lunacy you can associate with my getting up at 5 am or so, to get to the mall, there are boat loads of people that take the cake when it comes that.

The story I heard at Best Buy during this years sale - "There was such a crowd, they had to give out tickets to ascertain that the FIRST hundred or so customers got to the items that they wanted". Can you imagine? Such a big crowd that they had to give out tickets. And here is the kicker...some of them camped outside the store from the previous night, sometimes for over 10 hours, surviving through temperatures in the high 30s.

And for what? This year for instance, it was to save $150 on a digital camera. Maybe its a worthwhile saving, but I cannot imagine for the love of god, that I would be able to do such a thing. But then hey, if I were to compare the way I act to the ways people act, I am sure I will be unable to comprehend most of the actions.

Ultimately though, what transpires is that the Friday after thanksgiving turns into possibly the biggest single day of shopping anywhere in the world. Finally though, the Americans have one real thing they are the World Champions at....spending boat-loads of money in one day.

As for me, this year, I did try to get to the Best Buy asap to get to the digital camera. But hey, I got there only at the more human time of 8 am, and I got my hands only on a Canon PowerShot S1 - IS and an EPSON Stylus CX4600 Printer/Scanner/Copier and made a small but significant dent in my savings. But hey, I was looking forward to buying something interesting and with a good optical zoom level. And I got it :)