On Black Friday, what is wrong with us?

I just came across a video of Walmart shoppers trampling one another to grab $2 waffle makers. And I'm horrified -- not because I'm too good to enter into the Black Friday fracas, but because I have. And given the right set of circumstances, I could have been one of those waffle-iron-clamoring folks.

You can see the video by pasting the link below into your browser. The shot of the woman at the :16 mark -- the woman with the short blond hair and too-tight blue t-shirt -- is especially cringe-worthy. Enjoy.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/watch_battle_for_waffle_makers_57XaEkyAvwzRutn1unvkUM

What happens to us when we see a sign that advertises something for less than it's actually worth? Even the most refined of us can turn into barbarians at the gate. And most of the time, we're wasting money, as we're throwing it away on things we don't need and never, ever would have purchased if the sales didn't beckon us.

We're so, so stupid. I'm of course including myself here, as I jumped on the couponing train a few weeks ago. I had covered and written a story about a local woman who does a great job of saving money with coupons; she's not the kind of scary, hoarder-ish extreme couponer you see on the TLC show, but she's halved her family's budget since she began using coupons consistently and responsibly.

Read about her here:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20111113/COMM/311130054/Extreme-coupon-clipper-teaches-tricks-trade

So of course I decide that I'd like to halve my family's budget, too. I clip coupons for a couple of weeks, stick them in a school-supply box, and hit the grocery store. Sure, I use my coupons, but as a result, I spend more than I've ever spent at Hy-Vee in my entire life. Why? Because quite a few of the items for which I had coupons are things I would not normally buy. (Note: In all fairness to the coupon lady, she had warned us not to do this.)

The moral of the story? I can't be trusted with coupons that advertise deep discounts because, no matter what, I will use them. Seventy-five-percent off a springform pan? It's mine, even though I know I'll never in my life make a cheesecake from scratch. A dollar off a roll of paper towels that normally costs $1.39? I'm there, and I'm buying a bunch of them, even though they're so flimsy that I have to wad together three of them to wipe up a spill. A men's razor that neither my son nor husband needs? I have to grab it, you see, because it's free when you purchase the razor blades.

Here I am, then, on Black Friday afternoon. I had promised myself I'd stay put, but lo and behold, the mall -- and my daughter -- are beckoning. I have some coupons clipped and ready to go, and on my honor, they're for things I really, really can use and would have purchased anyway.

Wait, so you're questioning whether I really need that archery set, the coffee-table book on cats, the ice skates or the 70" x 70" white board? Hmpf. You obviously don't know me very well. :)

I'm old enough to remember "wish books."

I'm old enough to remember "Wish Books." Are you?

My friend Molly tweeted a photo this morning of her little guys poring over a Christmas catalog, determining the items they might want to place on their Santa lists. And it took me back.

During the Christmases of the late '60s and early '70s, when I was little, we'd wait for the mail to bring the two periodicals that officially ushered in the holiday season: The JC Penney "Wish Book" and the Sears Christmas catalog. We'd fight to be the first to start paging through the pristine pages; it was always best to circle our items before anyone else had a chance, as ballpoint pens tended to slice through the thin, glossy paper and make whatever was on the other side unreadable.

I remember seeing a Mrs. Beasley doll -- Buffy's doll from the '60s sitcom "Family Affair" -- on the pages of one of the catalogs. I circled it and ended up finding her under the tree on Christmas morning. Later, I circled roller skates and turquoise necklaces; even after I was old enough to know the horrid truth about Santa, I circled stereos, telephones, Earth shoes and "elephant" pants.

I first attended college at the University of Northern Iowa before transferring to Drake. I remember coming home for Thanksgiving of my freshman year and not wanting to go back, for some reason or another; I distinctly remember that as I waited in the living room for my ride to pick me up on that Sunday in 1981, I circled a set of electric rollers in the Wish Book.

My kids, 23 and 20 now, were always good about letting me know what they wanted for Christmas. With Scott, it was easy; he didn't like gifts for which he'd be forced to find a place in his room, so as soon as he was old enough to know what they were, he requested gift cards. Caroline would print pages from clothing-store websites and bring them to me.

There was something missing.

We all talk about how commercial Christmas has become; in fact, we were talking about it back then, too, as Charlie Brown began lamenting it on his Christmas special in the '60s. And to some degree, of course, it is too commercial; stores begin showcasing holiday decorations in October, and Thanksgiving is sometimes almost a footnote to the "real" holiday.

And we all have so much less time, it seems, to simply sit back and enjoy the holiday. In the Christmas seasons of my youth, of course parents worked, but we didn't have youth sports and music lessons and take-home piles from the office to steal our attention every night. We could hunker together on the couch, watch Christmas specials, and feel the season begin to warmly advance upon us.

I guess we take that holiday warmth wherever we can find it now. There are new traditions; commercialism be damned, my daughter and I look forward to shopping at midnight on Black Friday. We meander around for a while, enjoying the sights and sounds, and then we hit Perkins for a middle-of-the-night breakfast before heading home to bed. My son says he may join us this year.

And when the kids are home from college, we still gather around the TV for Charlie Brown, the Grinch, the Wonder Years' Christmas episode and Emmett Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (look it up! It's a good one). We talk and we eat and we laugh, and it's clear that the special feelings inherent to the season don't just fall away as we grow older.

But still, I can't help but hope for Wish Book will show up in my mailbox. As the song says, I need a little Christmas -- right this very minute. And there'd be no better way to find it than paging through slippery pages crumpled by a ball-point pen that doesn't have quite enough ink.

Dear Home Depot: Do you really have to be open on Easter?

One of my co-workers, Travis, works a part-time job. He and I share a cubicle wall, and I heard him talking this morning about being scheduled to work that job, at Home Depot, on Easter.

I was incredulous. But I don’t know why I should have been.

(A warning: My age is going to show in this blog post like a pair of purple panties under a pair of white linen pants. You’ve been warned.)

What has happened to family holidays? I’m not even talking Christian-versus-non-Christian observation here, but a family holiday – a day when stores are closed, work isn’t completed, movies aren’t showing in theaters, and people play board games or hang out on the couch watching bad TV. I haven’t seen one of those for a long time.

When I was little, that’s all there were. We’d wake up, go to Mass, and then the relatives would come. We’d talk, eat, talk some more, eat, play some games, half-heartedly watch whatever sport or “big-event” movie was on TV, and call it a day.

Even as I grew older, holiday rules didn’t change. I distinctly remember having to stretch my phone cord long enough to hide in my bedroom closet and sneak a phone call with my high-school boyfriend. Each of us, you see, had strict Catholic parents who had forbidden anything non-family-related on Easter.

And Good Friday – that was even more intense, from an isolated-with-the-family standpoint. When I was little, between the time we woke up and when we attended Stations of the Cross, we could do little but read quietly. We couldn’t even think of turning on the TV or the radio; out of respect for the suffering of Jesus, we had to have lengthy “quiet time.” I remember vividly that when 3 o’clock came around, I was so (uncharacteristically) happy to head to church.

But now – well, here it is, Good Friday, and most of us went to work. (Not everyone is Christian, so that makes sense, but I still would have liked to see the workday world stop for just one day.) My mother-in-law is here from Illinois, so we’re not likely to have quiet time; tonight will be spent playing cards and probably doing some shopping.


Tomorrow, my 14-year-old stepson has ball games all day; strangely enough, ball tournaments really don’t even constitute “family time,” as I sit in the bleachers and talk with the moms as my husband stands and paces several feet away. We’ll be cold and cranky, and by the end of the day we’ll be too wiped to interact with anyone, even those in our own house.

We’ll do Mass and a family meal with the relatives on Easter; my kids will come from their colleges and spend a few hours before rushing back to their activities. Later on, I’ll catch up on some writing and some laundry and get ready for the week.

None of this is bad or detrimental in any way, really; we’re not disregarding the holiday. But to most people these days (“these days”? Told you I’d show my age), a holiday is simply another excuse to play catch-up, and we’re no exception.

I was easily bored as a child, and in no way would I want to go back to quiet Good Fridays; yes, we had the day off school, but what was the point if you couldn’t watch Betty Lou and the House with the Magic Window?

At the same time, though, I miss seeing my grandma walk into our house with platters of baked goods and tell us in hushed tones that Easter is the best day of the whole year, because "on this day, Jesus rose from the dead and proved to his detractors that he really was the son of God."

That was a holiday. Here’s what’s not a holiday: Knowing that Home Depot is open so we can stop and pick up a gallon of paint if we absolutely can’t wait till Monday. Even if the store is festooned with cardboard eggs and bunnies, it’s just another indicator that not everything changes for the better.