Forgotten plus sides of the economic recession

I had spent the past two days in my room doing diddly-squat. I blamed everything I could (sprained ankle, stomach ache, weather, etc) but really I was just lazy. Because I have been completely immobile for the past two days, I have "rescheduled" myself so to speak, and have mixed up my sleep pattern.  I woke up today at 12:30 and had breakfast while everyone else was making lunch. My lunch came at around 4 and at around 4:15 I took a shower and "got my day started". I went out to do some last minute back to school shopping, mainly searching for a pair of jeans that DOESN'T have a hole in the crotch or stains. I failed. I did not find any new jeans that I liked. I did find going out of business sales, which filled me with great excitement.

The first stop was Filenes Basement. To my knowledge the chain isn't going out of business, just our store. They were having fantastic sales on everything...unfortunately I am not a 65 year old woman as that is who all the clothes were targeted for. I do not enjoy wearing oversized sweaters with rhinestone buttons or stretch leggings with stirrups and polka dots. I did manage to find a pair of pants for 15 dollars and a cashmere sweater for 25. I almost bought a ridiculous looking bathing suit for 9 dollars, but decided against it. I may regret that later. 

I stood in line for the purchases for what seemed like forever. I think at one point the line moved backwards. As I was paying the cashier did her best to make sure I would never come back to the store again, including knocking the sweater to the floor, holding up her finger and saying "hold on, I'll get that in a minute" and then walking away to talk to her friend. The cashiers were all talking about the great sales over at Circuit City. "Aha!" I thought, "That's right! Circuit City is going out of business, JACKPOT". I quickly paid for my purchases and raced (safely) over to Circuit City. You would have thought they were giving away gold bars. People were practically parking their cars on Route 1. I myself parked over at the mall and crossed the fenced off area rather than spend the time to turn around and park in the actual Circuit City parking lot. I was not alone, what set me apart from my fellow times savers, however, is that I was not running into the store. Nor was I shoving my child out of the way because they were moving too slow. It was a hectic and emotional scene that I frankly was not comfortable with. Once at the door I see a giant sign "EVERYTHING ON SALE! 10% OFF EVERYTHING!". What? Seriously? These people are RUNNING for a 10% off sale? Inside I begin to look around. I guess 10% off of a flat screen tv is a lot, but 10% off of an already overpriced DVD is not worth it. I considered getting a new camera as mine is literally falling apart (thank you Parade Night....) but I hadn't researched them and frankly didn't know where to even start. I wandered over to the laptop supplies. I've been meaning to buy myself a laptop sleeve as currently I wrap my laptop in a towel whenever I bring it around in my backpack...but again, the discount just wasn't worth it. Things were being thrown, people were yelling into cell phones, acting like this was a Home Depot the day before a hurricane. I left in disgust, getting plowed into by a guy using his baby stroller as a weapon in one final display of human indecency. As I walked to my car more cars came careening into the parking lot, more people raced by. I wanted to yell at them to go to Best Buy for the same prices with less of a hassle, but no, they need to learn these lessons on their own. Just as I crossed the fence over to my car another car pulled in next to mine and a smartly dressed couple, clearly on their way to dinner, barreled out of the car nearly knocking me over. Next to them two high schoolers joined the rush as an immigrant couple proudly sauntered in the opposite direction with their purchases. Recession induced blow out sales, bringing us all together.