Friday's Rant: $39 Shop Vacs
The planning, the plotting, the strategy - it all began early - weeks, perhaps. But it wasn't until the day before - that things really got serious. It started when we left home and picked up a paper for Anne. She spent much of the 4 1/2 hour car ride going through all of the ads, prioritizing them all carefully - as if she was the archivist of a lost treasure. She made note of all the pluses and minuses of each ad, carefully tearing out well chosen coupons.
But, after all, we were heading to Mitchell, SD, so her options were limited. She had to prioritize and choose wisely. Once we arrived at the hotel, she met with all the other field generals and discussed the best plan of attack. The afternoon was spent again flipping through the ads, what time each of them were getting up, old stories of "Black Fridays" gone by, battles won and battles lost.
"But there is no way I'm getting up at 4 a.m. - that's crazy," she said. I concurred.
That was until I read the Menard's ad. Before that point, I had basically stayed out of it. There's a Cabela's in Mitchell - that's all I needed to know. But, there's also a Menard's - probably my second favorite store in all the known world. I looked through the ad, savoring it, drinking it in like an unopened Christmas present. There were several good things - but one item caught my eye - a 6 HP 16 gallon Shop Vac (one with the little drain plug) for $39. A very good price.
For the first time in my life, the thought crossed my mind. "Doors open at 6 a.m.," the ad read. "Hmmm...from where I'm at right now, I thought, I'm at most 7 minutes from the store...hmmm." I scratched my chin and pondered the possibility.
I have a Shop-Vac that works fine. I don't need one. But THIS one. THIS one was 16 gallons! I only have a puny 5 gallon Shop-Vac. And mine doesn't have TWO extensions wands. Hmmm...
I laid in bed that night, before Anne shut of the lights, and thumbed through the ad once more. Hmmm...maybe I'll just set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. and see if I feel like it when I get up.
The die was cast.
Collin woke up at 5:15 a.m., so I didn't even need the alarm. I got up, got dressed, and left. Anne shaking her head the whole time. It was 17 degrees with a thin coat of frost when I got to the family truckster. I sat shivering in the darkness of the freezing car as it warmed up, running the washer fluid for five minutes (I don't scrape). An then running it for another five minutes to wash off what then instantly refroze to my windshield.
I was off. "So this is what it feels like," I thought, as I merged onto I-90. It was 5:45 a.m.
At about 5:48 a.m., I exited off of the interstate, onto the little frontage road and could see the beautiful glow of the Menard's sign. "Ah, there she is." But then I saw it...
Friends and neighbors, I try and see myself as an observer - a noticer of things. I like to think I see the crazy things people do and wonder, "Why?" Not that dissimilar to the way a cultural anthropologist watches a native tribe in Africa somewhere. I realize now how innocent I really was thinking that I was going to just get up at 5:30 a.m. in the freezing cold, cruise down to my neighborhood Menard's, stroll into the store and come waltzing out, Shop-Vac in hand. The scales have fallen from my eyes.
People are crazy! Anybody who's spent much time in a Menard's parking lot knows how big they are. Here I am in Mitchell, SD (pop. 12,000, including stray dogs) and this lot was FULL. Literally, FULL. What's more, there was a line of people 20 feet wide and probably a block long (seriously) waiting for them to open. Insanity. I circled the lot, shook my head, and left.
No Shop-Vac is worth what I was going to have to go through to get this one. It's now 7:22 a.m. The women are all eating breakfast. Carbing up for the shopping strategies that are about to be executed. They know better. They know how the game is played. I, on the other hand, clearly did not - a casualty - a mere shock-troop in the war that smarter people than I will win later this morning.
