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By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
Nov. 26, 2005 I am not much of a shopper. Mostly I would prefer staying in bed to getting up to be in line when the stores open the day after Thanksgiving, but my wife talked me into it. What a startling revelation! The parking lots were full before 5AM. There were lines of people stretching around the buildings and winding back the alleys. Once we got into the stores, people were mostly calm and polite, but they were grabbing up goods at a rapid rate—and these were not cheap dollar items. There were elderly ladies pushing carts with three large televisions stacked on them. $200 and $300 MP3 players were going by the handful. We were after some IPod Nano accessories our son wanted as well as just browsing for items that the other kids might want. I picked up a DVD internal drive for a daughter. An MP3 player for a son’s fiancée. A Sirius satellite radio for another. A keyboard for a grandkid. Gee, a few bucks here and there and soon you’re talking about real money. Where have I heard that before? And then, after putting everything into a carry basket, we got into line. Actually, there were three lines, each of which wound its way among and around several aisles and counters, much like the lines for a show wind among slot machines in Las Vegas. Perhaps it was as deliberate, as it gave more exposure to various items on the racks, and many were tempted to grab a computer program or a game cartridge as they went by. But once in line, we stood for many minutes. And stood. And stood. And moved a few feet. And stood some more. It took 2 hours to get out of the store. Yes, it is a good thing the economy is so bad, or the store would have been really crowded! (Think about it. I predict the stock market has further to climb and the economy is doing quite well, thank you very much, George W. Bush.) ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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