Thanksgiving Sale Update

Hello People,

Longtime no hear! Yup thats me, never expect regularity from me. Anyways, so last Thursday was Thanksgiving in the US and on Friday was the Day After Thanksgiving door buster sale....And in fine American fashion yours truly decided to make the best out of it...What did I do ?

Till about 2 in the night on Thursday I was busy with God only knows what ? Was I reading a book , or maybe watching TV, nah I think working online, which reminds me I need to do some rework on my website...Anyways, enough of diversions..So anyways, late in the night I set out to find the newspaper for Thursday i.e. the Union Tribune because all the electronics and other stores publish their Friday morning deals only in the Thursday or sometimes even Friday paper! Okay how smart of me to go looking for a paper at 8 in the night..I spent 1 hour looking for the paper. I went to all the gas stations nearby which generally have a 24 hour booth for basic amenities and yeah also the newspaper...They were all sold out...Man I also went to some vending stations and ended up wasting quarters as all the machines were empty!

Anyways, when I returned home helpless, I was even more determined to find out the rates..You see you can't really afford to go to all the stores..U have to make a list of your items compare the rates before hand and then head off to the place where you have the best odds of getting your stuff...

Finally, by 3 in the night I had found a bunch of forums with listed prices for all stores you could possibly imagine. After all if you have Google who needs a Union Tribune !
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=black+friday+deals+san+diego
http://247malls.com/GO1/thanksgiving.htm

BY 5 in the morning I was in the shower which was a first I might say, I was like yeah for the first time in my professional life I will be at work before 8 (which was only a dream, it never happenned okay!)

By 5:35 I was at Frys which is the biggest electronics chain in California and I was like "OH MY GOD"...There was a freaking line with at least 5000 people and there was no scene for parking...I parked like many others in an illegal spot off the street....Ran to get in line...The line started at the entrance to the store and do you want to know where I was relative to that ? I was at the very end of the line which by the way went all around the big store and ended again at the entrance...Only difference there was so much security, you really had to walk all around the store in the line to get to the entrance...In the line I saw the young and the old, the excited shoppers and the determined ones..It really is true, some people had camped through the night for they had folding chairs and what not with them...I saw a lot of students from UCSD and SDSU in the line, all in their friendly circles talking about you get 2 of those I will get 2 of that...It was all fun! Meanwhile I borrowed somebody's newspaper and checked the rates...They were slightly different..I referred to my list and had a thought that this might be a bad idea..I might still be better off heading to Circuit City which was my next best shot after Frys...Why, why didn't I follow my basic instinct ? Thats the million dollar question !

Doors opened at 6 am sharp...The line screeched in...I was in by 6:15 but by then there were long lines....Which line should I join the one for the digital camera or the one for the home theatre system/DVD player...I took a shot..I started in the latter line...It was long very long...By the time it was my turn at 7:15 all the home theatre systems were sold but I did get 2 DVD players for $15 each...I wanted one for myself and one for a dear friend who got married on Thanksgiving day in India! Next I hit the digital camera line which was again very long basically from one end of the store to another....Shortly came the announcement all digital cameras have been sold out! Aw man that hurt...My heart was set at getting one for my parents...It was going at $149 at Frys while Best Buy and Circuit City were at $199...Anyways, along the way I got a rice cooker for 5 bucks and then decided to join the checkout queue which was as long as it possibly could be!!! It started right near the farthest end of the store and kept going to the entrance/exit towards the cashier lanes....That was 1 long line...Thankfully, I found a colleague from office in the line and we started chatting...Another fellow also joined and we started figuring out the whole concept behind the maddenning sale....While being naive as I am, I was of the view point that why do these store keepers not stock pile..How come everything is sold out within the first hour ? If the prices are so damn cheap the only way they can make money is in volume so then why not hold more volumes...Someone suggested that but they are trying to be risk averse....And then came the right answer.....

The Black Friday or the Day after Thanksgiving sale is not for store keepers to sell tons of stuff cheap but the point is to hold very minimal stock of very low priced goods which they evidently sell at a loss...But the idea is to create the fantasy, to pull in just about enough people that most of them would end up being lost leaders i.e. they tried to get the booty but they just missed...Like me but then I ended up not being a lost leader....A lost leader would typically feel bad about not being able to buy his/her stuff and end up buying something else at close to regular prices just to feel better....The crucial thing for the average customer is "STICK to your list"...And thats what I did!! I endured the long lines but did not buy anything that I wasn't planning to buy! Okay I am not determined..In fact I am very impulsive but after my detailed research I really couldn't find anything except the rice cooker that was well priced and so that I picked frivolously...

I headed out of Frys very tired and dehydrated after 3 hours lamenting myself that why didn't I just leave when I saw the long lines....See the thing is that I could have bought the DVD players at the same rate anywhere but the Home Theatre and Digi-Cam would be SOLD OUT at all the places by now! And then it was after all a working day! Screw it! I thought hey people left work at 10:30 on Wednesday so I can go late....I'll deal with what people have to say!

So I went to Ciruit City..No it was not very crowded and EUREKA I found the Home Theatre system all with 5 speakers and 150 watts and a DVD player for just $68...The digital camera was expensive so I didn't bother to get it!

Now I was in the real sense WOMAN ON A MISSION! I knew what I wanted and where! I headed to Staples bought the wireless mouse, calculator and webcam at dirt cheap rates as I had decided last night....Next stop was the big W, WALMART! Here I wandered a little...They had changed rates and did not have many deals this year! But I bought a vacuum cleaner cheap..Basically I got a bagless one at the price of the old bag type with all the other factors same! Then I bought myself a set of cutlery you know with plates, bowls, etc...This is because last week I broke a plate and I had only 2 plates to start with...So now everytime I have to eat I have to wash my plate which is a big pain, right! Next I bought a set of nonstick pots and pans for cooking, which by the way I have been hardly doing since I left Stanford....Those were the days.....Oh I also bought an electronic can opener for 4 bucks...With the amount of cans I open every month you know for tomatoes, kidney beans and what not I figured this was a good investment!

By now I was dead tired and it was almost 10:30 so off I headed to work.....I left work by 4:30-5.. By that time most of the office was deserted.....I offloaded all the stuff at home, put in my sleepover bag and all the goodies that had just come from Mom in the car and off I started towards LA....Driving at 80 miles per hour without having slept the night before....It was all nice...The Desi Thanksgiving dinner was being hosted by my sister on Friday night and I was there to ravish all the Kashmiri style cooking....The weekend flew by with a trip to Catalina Island and a bunch of jokes with friends and family and I was back home by 10 pm Sunday night....

Its about 10 on Saturday night right now...Its been a week and after all that excited shopping I still haven't opened any of the items and checked whether they work. Neither have I bothered to mail out the mail-in-rebate forms...

OHHH What a week ! Did I forget to mention that each day this week I came home after 9 pm...I almost started hating my job...Things will be better next week, I hope!

RISE & SHINE is my new MOTTO!!