That was what she wanted to hear -- "There are no final goodbyes" -- after several attempts to fulfill her request that I say something nice. She looks really good and I had said so but that wasn't what she meant, nor any compliments on the good things in how she's led her life. But that was good enough.
The audacious invitation that I join her and our sons and their girlfriends and my mother for Thanksgiving was met and honored with good times, laughter, and a long fireside conversation that cleared up a thing, maybe two; and that's a lot for one conversation. I would call it a success all around: Healthy interrelations, and very few tears when I went back "home".
"Very" few? Well, "a" few certainly. It wasn't exactly cake and ice cream to drive up as a guest to the house I built, and then leave again.
* * *
When I got to my truck just past midnight, there was ice on the windshield. Thankfully I had a scraper.
Peering through eyes half-closed by wine, hunched over the wheel in the cold air, lurching along dark streets in a truck old enough to buy alcohol, I was sensitive to the sight of a police car. I looked up the street it was nosing out of and saw parking lots full of cars. I doubled back to investigate.
Best Buy was surrounded. The length of the sidewalk was covered in people, sleeping bags, tents, all hunkered down for this thing called Black Friday. I pulled over and asked, "When's it open?"
"Five!"
Nuts. My plan to buy a camera was at risk. They'd probably run out of stock on everything by noon.
Who the fuck sleeps out in the sub-freezing cold to go shopping anyway? How good can the prices possibly be? The store still has to make money so I figure the chop to be maybe 40% at most. No, more like 25%, I just looked. So, WTF? Is it really a sane decision? Or are these people caught up in some weird vortex of hype? Buy buy buy! Now now now!
Wha-a-atever. It's now past one and I was going to put in a full day of work tomorrow. Yeah. Right.
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5 comments:
We had two women camped out at Best Buy LAST WEEK in order to be first in line for today. And the stupid store manager sent a message to everyone for next year to follow in this ridiculous spendathon behavior by giving them free iPads! What are they going to lose by offering decent sales at normal hours??? I just don't get the point of this madness.
I went out of my apt today only to toss away a bag of garbage and get the mail. Happy happy no shopping!! Though I did try to find a coat online no luck. (I'm ultrapicky.)
Re final goodbyes ... better to fade away imo.
Asked the guy at Best Buy what the deal was. Said there were some items that wouldn't last long at the sale price, was why people come early. Couple ladies had been there since Wednesday night.
Not to save a thousand dollars would I do such a thing.
And of my replacement camera they had plenty.
I want to know why when I write without considering sentence structure it comes out sort of unconventional. A research project for another day perhaps.
I've never shopped on Black Friday, or camped out on Thanksgiving evening. Not on my to-do list at any price.
Seems like a lot has happened since I last visited your blog--maybe 4 years ago.
It must feel ... very odd ... to have to be invited back for a night to the family who were your life for so long. Sort of like ... resurrecting the dead, for a few hours. I mean, of course they're not dead, but ... hmmm. I can't think of a better way to say it.
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