The Wonderful Sunday Paper

I love the Sunday paper. I sit down on my couch, turn on the news, gather the paper and my coffee and sit down for a wonderful interlude with my inner-shopper. Normally I read the headlines on the first page just to build anticipation for the ads. Today, I got sucked in by an interesting article about Opera, and why I should go. It made me actually want to attend an opera performance, and you know what? I just might.

But I digress. The REAL reason I get the paper at ALL is for the Wednesday food columns, the Saturday TV guide and the Sunday ads. (Joe reads the paper faithfully every single day while sitting in his "office". I'll leave it to you to determine where his "office" is. I subscribed to the paper for "Joe" for his birthday because he loves the paper. But I get the secret benefit of the Sunday ads.)

So, as I said, I look at all the pretty ads, on shiny paper, in color, and try to determine just what it is that I can't live without at Target and Michael's this week. Then I look at all the grocery coupons. About 1/2 the time I tear out the coupons I think I might use. About 98% of the time I forget to take whatever coupons I tear out to the grocery store with me. Of the 2% of the time I DO take the coupons with me, many times I find another brand of the item cheaper and don't use it anyway.

But you know what? It's only 2 weeks until the Holy Grail of newspaper ads come out. We all know it...its the ads for BLACK FRIDAY. The day after Thanksgiving, when the most incredible deals of the year are advertised. I carefully look at the ads, determine if there is anything I think is worth going for, and plan my attack. If there's anything SERIOUSLY cool, like a DVD player for $20.00, a digital camera for a mere $5.00, or a computer for $150 for the first 10 people through the door, I'm willing to stand in line starting at ... oh, 6:45 am, which obviously means I'm going to miss out on the $15o computer because there are idiots out there that stand in line all night long just to be the first in the door when it opens.

Truthfully, I have only done that one year. Joe and I got up early and stood outside of Wal-mart waiting to get some serious deals. And we did. But we risked our lives. People are crazy on Black Friday. They will run over you with their cart, yank Cabbage Patch kids right out of your hands, knock you over to get at the last $5.00 digital camera. It's scary. So, I wait until around 9 or 10 when the hard core "crazies" are out of the way. It's still crowded, but all the $20 DVD players, $5.00 cameras and $150 computers are gone, so no one is willing to maim or kill by mid-morning.

14 days and counting! Black Friday cometh!