Best Buy at the End Of The World
Every so often I hit a point where I realize I have no stories to tell. Little happens in my life; I get up, go to work, go home. Lather rinse repeat. A few weeks ago I ate lunch outside - one of the last warm days this could be done. A squirrel looking for a handout came up to me. Came right up to where I was sitting, sat up on its haunches and just stared at me for a long moment. Then slowly deliberately it put out one of its paws. I gave it the last fifth of my sandwich, and it went away. This constitutes the only noteworthy thing that has happened to me all fall. For this reason I am willing and even consider it advisable to occasionally tell other peoples' stories.
My favorite story from among a number in the last twelve months is one a coworker Jeremy W. tells of how he obtained his current laptop two years ago. The story came up in the context of another discussion now forgotten.
It was the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, ground zero of American retail. The day all Americans come together to fight entropy in the way this nation knows best. Jeremy was looking for a laptop computer as it happened. Supply and demand now mixed with market information and came together on this Thanksgiving out at his grandparents (or cousins) house where the family is congregated. A local paper had an advertisement for a grand opening promotional sale. Name brand laptops at $200 below list. Those and other gadgets. While supplies last. Doors open at dawn. At some point during the evening it becomes apparent that just getting up early or even staying up all night and setting out early wasn't going to make it. A line was forming, it was necessary to get out there immediately. Now all this is occurring in Morgantown West Virginia. Morgantown is countryside such that all destinations lie in one of two places: at the foot of a mountain, or at the top of a mountain. So it comes to pass that Jeremy finds himself winding along a dark spare switchback road at 10 o'clock at night up to the Best Buy at the End Of The World.
In the illustration (provided by Google maps)
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you see some confusion as to which side of University Towne Center Dr the store is located on. Details of the story would suggest it is one of the three buildings to the southwestern side.
Once he arrives there it becomes apparent this is no mere sales event, a commerce commonplace. A chord in the people had been touched, it was becoming a human event, a happening. The line grows from the front door, wraps around one, then two, three, and finally round all four sides of the building. The parking lot becomes the effervecsing outer ring of this circus as a light snow begins to fall. Sight-seers drive by, and compatriots of the inline come along, spelling and provisioning their atomized troops. Police cars add the center to a special segment of their regular rounds. Behind the store, beyond a narrow loading dock alley, there is only a sudden drop down the mountain now covered in a layer of mounting snow, 200 feet to I-79 below - a considerable local hazard for the more festive minded present. Jeremy, as he tells this story, captures the moment with a quality I can't really re-transmit. But I could see in my mind the stretch of the line, the sodium vapor light reflecting off the falling snow, a numinous glow between individuals there at that moment. The remainder of the night as it pushed on towards dawn was chiefly very cold he recalls. When the first employees begin arriving in the night's small hours they quickly realize they have gotten far more than they bargained for. They move into an ad hoc damage control mode, inventorying the line and passing out coupons. It is as much as they can do. When the doors open a mad rush begins; overwhelming an order that consisted of little more than yellow tape barriers that attempted to channel people in one direction or another. Confusion reigned and temperaments ranged across the boundary of excitable to irritated. Loss leader inventory inevitably falls. General inventory like Foch's yielding center eventually proves resilient and holds. It all ends with Jeremy taking triumphant possession of a laptop, a different model than the one advertised but a laptop, which I believe possibly he still has.
It is still an open question on many peoples minds as whether the climate this year prevails under el nino, or la nina retail conditions. The watchword of the hall as always is strength through consumption. That is fine no matter what they say
Don't Buy It - washingtonpost.com. I need stuff, you need stuff, we all need stuff.
From childhood's memory I recall a good year was one where the shopping trips went to Shopper's World (the giant wooden toy soldiers, Santa Claus, the dancing waters), or to Natick Mall. The years not as good as those, it was to Zayres, Filenes Basement, or Two Guys. At any rate our world for years never extended further than Framingham to one side, Milford to the other. There is; though, no leaving alone the desires of the American consumer. There is a school of thought - excess capacity
Capacity utilization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A robust and insatiable industrial capacity will yield an overflowing cornucopia of production. Modern advertising is built on the premise and understanding that a fire of sorts must be lit under the psyche of the American consumer. To absorb as much of this as possible to keep inflation in check and meet such other sundry needs of the few, and effect only the storage of the many.
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