Capitalistic Orgies

For years, I thought that people who went out shopping the day after Thanksgiving were insane. "If you know for certain that there will be enough people in line at Best Buy to turn back the 121st Airborne using only cell phones and the pointy ends of cd cases," I reasoned, "why would you add to the melee?" Also, I have never been known as an early riser, and getting up at 6am to go shopping seemed the ultimate idiocy. But then last year I saw an ad in the paper advertising the first season of The Simpsons on DVD (which had been out for quite awhile) for $12. Now that was a good deal, seeing as it usually sold for somewhere around $35 or so. So I went out and bought it. It took a little while, and the line was certainly ridiculous (they had to use the appliance department as a rope cordon), but the salve of $12 Simpsons DVDs was more than enough to soothe me.

So now Thanksgiving rolled around again, and I eagerly searched through the newspaper ads to see if anyone was offering a similar deal. And indeed they were. Target was advertising season 4 of The Simpsons for $18. Now season 4 came out in June, and has many more quality episodes than season 1, so I understood the price hike. So I set my alarm, rolled out of bed still full of turkey, and got to the nearest Target at 7:30am. The store was populated, but by no means packed. Still, when I finally navigated the DVD section and found the laser-imprinted treasure, there were only two copies left on the shelf. I don't know if they had more in the back, but I'm glad I didn't have to find out (they also had seasons 1 & 2 of South Park on sale for the same price, but as I don't really have a job right now I forced myself to pass on them). So I have now obtained seasons 1 & 4 of The Simpsons for a total of $30. Cost on amazon at this moment: $63. Now that's a deal you won't get on Amazon.

So I guess my advice here is to only go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving if you have a very, very good reason, which you can find because all stores everywhere would go bankrupt, causing the immediate and catastrophic implosion of our society if people didn't go shopping after Thanksgiving. Thus to save humanity as we know it, retailers are forced to offer the massive discounts we see every year so as to stir up the public and induce an orgy of capitalistic spending. I suggest selectively taking advantage of the retailers' vulnerable position (and I suppose if society imploded it might impact you in some small way, so you might actually be helping yourself). Go early, leave as quick as you can, and you can be back at home asleep before you even know what happened.


Note: I will be posting a review of season 4 as soon as I get through it and check out some of the extras. So far it's fantastic. Upcoming reviews also include Smallville season 3 and I Heart Huckabees.