Buy, buy, buy, now, now, now
by Matt Worley

I'm sure there were noble reasons for establishing Thanksgiving. I remember all the lessons we were taught in grade school about how the Pilgrims and the Indians (that's what they were called back then) got together, shared their food and had a good meal full of happiness and togetherness. To celebrate this, little tots like myself used to cut out construction paper and make strange little Pilgrim and Indian outfits to go with our bit of turkey mush and milk. Most of the time I wanted to be an Indian because they dressed cooler--they wore feathers (or multi-colored construction paper feathers).

For the real holiday, we either had visitors or we visited someone. This might have involved a harrowing ride through snow-infested interstates and highways, but sometimes it was nice and I slept through the entire trip. There was always good food. And then it was over. Thanksgiving gave way to more school and quite a wait until Christmas. Well, no more.

The day after Thanksgiving is a holiday in itself. To capitalize on the fact that many people don't work on the Friday after Thanksgiving (not counting retail, fast food, or newspaper workers), the day after has become The Day. The day to shop. The day to spend money. The day to crowd the streets and malls and Wal-Marts all over the country in order to save a few pennies on crap that nobody really needs anyway.

Oh man, I've already started to sound cynical here. I guess I better explain.

I was reading the Sunday paper today when I realized that the Thankgiving day paper was going to be very much like a Sunday paper. Crammed to the brim with circulars and sale announcements. So, in order to get a step on all of that crass consumerism, I decided to take a quick look through today's circulars and give all my readers a preview of what they'll be buying on Friday.

A quick definition-- crass consumerism is the "buy now" mentality, while regular consumerism is the "buy sometime" mentality.

On the cover of the Wards circular is an interesting little line. It reads, "We're changing everything to change your mind." I'm not sure what this means, but it sure is exciting. Almost like the prospect of another election.

Wards has everything. They even have a breadmaker. Now, the last time anyone made bread for me was sometime in college when I visited my house. My mom had made banana bread or something like that. She didn't use a bread maker, she used an oven--like she always has. But apparently everyone needs a breadmaker, even if they don't actually make bread at all. The WelbiltŪ (ohh, that's catchy) 1.5 lb. breadmaker costs $39.99. Regular price is $79.99. You pay $49.99 less $10 mail-in rebate. So really, it's like paying all that income tax on your payroll check and sometime next year you'll get the extra savings.

At Sears, they're not changing. But they've got something to tell all of us: "Why wait? Get the right price now." Sensible, if you've got the right money now (or is it the money right now?). Every big appliance (and even some small ones) are pictured with big red bows. I guess this is the "serving suggestion" for major appliances.

I save the biggest screw-job for the makers of DIVX technology, though. DIVX is a kind of DVD disk. DVD is the new VCR, except they don't record, they just play (but they play movies on compact disk!). DIVX technology is the ability of the makers of these products to keep getting paid after they've already made the sale. See, DIVX disks are just like DVDs except for one thing--you can only watch them once.

For $4.49, you can buy a DIVX disk and watch it for 2 days. If you want to watch it again, you have to pay another $3.25 for another 2 days. The gimmick is that you won't have to actually get off your ass and go to the video store to rent a video, you can rent the video you already own and not move at all! Most DVD players cost around $399 and come with DIVX technology--except the cheaper $299 DVD players (new pricing for the holiday season!).

Now, I'm in favor of DVD players (better visuals and sound--and like regular CDs, they don't have tracking problems) and whenever I get enough money (I'm thinking sometime in 2000) to buy one, I'll probably break down. Here's hoping their not still pushing this DIVX crap when I make the plunge.

Jingle, jingle, jingle, the holiday season has started. And those jingle sounds you hear ain't sleigh bells. Happy shopping day everyone!

Matt Worley plans to hide under his covers and cower from the world on the day after Thanksgiving.

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