Painting the Town Black (with a very modest brush)

After our annual Thanksgiving feed, our regular November visitor, dear C., informed me that come Friday morning, he would be up and out off to the Black Friday sale at a nearby location of the biggest chain used bookstore. He'd read about it online, or noticed the signage when we'd been in the bookstore earlier in the week, I don't remember which. He likes a bargain, our boy, and he has the patience and self discipline to plot his purchases. I don't. Still, knowing that when he visits, we will be indulging our shared interest in old books, I do try to pace myself. (He's a good influence, is C.) I bought almost nothing but clearance books, that first shopping day we'd spent together; more than few books, admittedly, but all cheap. (As it turned out, that Monday was the first disastrous day of the ice storm in Seattle. C., a native Californian, was thrilled when it started to snow the day after he got into town. Less thrilled on our ride home on Monday, when he drove on the stuff for the first time. He did remarkably well. We lived. I like to think the books we bought -- okay, mostly me -- added ballast when we had to navigate the abandoned cars and wrecks going home over the West Seattle Bridge.) I don't usually bother much with sales, but this did sound a good deal.

The bookstores opened early, and the first hundred or so people got a capacious book-bag, with a five dollar gift card inside. One lucky customer at each location got a gift card for one hundred bucks. We neither of us got the big money card. Oh well. In addition, everything in the store was twenty percent off, just for the day. C. went very early indeed, back to the branch we'd been to early in the week, and carefully collected the books he'd scoped out on that first trip, used his little gift card, and got his twenty percent discount on the lot. Prudent fellow.

I decided to go to the location on my way to work, and swanned into the used bookstore about an hour before I had to punch in at my job. I just managed to be one of the last people offered a bag, which I at first refused, until the clerk reminded me that there was a gift card inside. Five dollars is five dollars. I accepted the bag. All told, I bought five more books, and after the gift card and the discount, spent about eighteen dollars. I was in and out in about twenty minutes.

Besides the books I found, I wanted to go just to check out what such a sale would be like. We have regular sales at the bookstore where I work, but we haven't made much of Black Friday. Thought I'd see how it was done. I must say, I was impressed with the thing. With a minimum of publicity -- mostly just in-store so far as I could tell -- and with a relatively modest outlay on the bags and cards, Black Friday was probably pretty good to that company's bottom-line. I didn't ask to discuss the numbers with management there, of course. I only know what I saw, and what I heard from C. about the turn-out at the other location. Both of us found the parking lots nearly full, people all over the place, everybody happy with their gift bags and cards, and we both waited in line to check out, even with more cashiers working than is usual for the place. From the outside looking in, Id have to say, it all looked pretty successful to me. Glad I went.

When I got to work, I told the Grand Vizier at my job what I'd seen and why I thought it might work, one way or another, for us sometimes, Black Friday or otherwise. He was, as always, open to what I had to say. (He's very good about that sort of thing. Nice.)

I've been thinking about what I saw Friday ever since. Tonight, friend C. took me to see a Baroque concert. This is quickly becoming something of a new tradition for us when he comes up each November. Lovely evening. Since we got home, I've been chewing over the idea of Black Friday. I've seen various people on social media bemoaning this annual event in the American retail calendar. Obviously, the name comes from stores hoping to move out of the red and into the black on what is traditionally the busiest Christmas shopping day of the year. Many an easy joke however was made by many a friend and acquaintance, none of them earning their living in retail I must say, about how this Friday went Black. I don't entirely disagree with the antimaterialist sentiments expressed, bemoaning the commercialization of the Holidays, decrying the crass, and classist advertising that comes with this kind of thing, etc., etc. As someone whose livelihood depends on people buying books, and as someone who believe that there are few better ways -- after the rent's paid and and the Thanksgiving dishes are cleared -- for people to spend their money than by buying a book, I will admit my bias, and still say I rather like the idea of offering incentives to get folks into the stores the day after we eat the turkey. Say what you will about our consumer society and the debt that supports it, there is something fun about the Christmas shopping season, and kicking it off with a bargain or two.

I am one of those neurotic types who work themselves up to a considerable pitch about Christmas every year; trying to get or make good gifts, worrying myself throughout December with Holiday projects that almost never get done and then collapse just before Christmas, with little or nothing accomplished. Some times -- just last year in fact -- I can even manage to screw up the whole thing and end up without so much as a Christmas card sent. Christmas, in other words, for me, can be a kind of personal Hell. One bright spot though, I still enjoy working in the bookstore during the Holidays. I do. What I do best, I get to do most at Christmas time. People want suggestions, come looking for gifts that turn into very interesting paper-chases, buy more expensive and special things like lovely old sets of leatherbound books. For the most part, people Christmas shopping are in a more festive mood. I like the buzz and the pace and the fast interaction. I like the music. I like the decorations and the pretty packages and the way little kids will stop dead before my desk and give the fat man in the white beard a serious once-over. I dig the whole vibe.

Truth be told, however badly I manage things personally, I love Christmas.

Now I'm thinking what a gas it would be to see the bookstore where I work crowded with bargain hunters on that notorious Friday each November. I'd show up early. I specialize in the bookstore's used and bargain books. No better deals in the book business. I'd love the opportunity to start the season off with a bang, and be out there pushing the used inventory.

Whatever one's philosophical reservations about this sort of things -- and yes, I have a few, still -- I very much want in on the excitement. I found at least one entirely unsuspected treasure when I went to that Black Friday sale: the price before the discount was exactly the value of the gift card I was given at the door. Whether it's true or not, I feel like I got a free book!

Who wouldn't like a free book?!

True, I bought some others, did what I could to help the economy and all that, but really, I'm still just jazzed about that free book. We gotta get in on this action, seriously. Perhaps another new tradition to share with our friend every year? Bach and Bargains? Why not?

Sold.