Time was when you had to be observing the US Thanksgiving Holiday before you had anything to do with Black Friday. That’s in the past though; nowadays Black Friday has become a global phenomenon and yours truly was not immune to the effects. It wasn’t by intention, but it happened. So did Cyber Monday.
My story begins early on the Friday after US Thanksgiving. I was happily shaving when my electric razor literally came apart in my hands. The blades broke right away from the shaving head. Since the razor was 8-9 years old there was no point in replacing the blades, so it was off to Walmart on Black Friday to get a new one. After braving the early morning crowds I found exactly the model I wanted. Got a good deal too.
Later on that day I was listening to Christmas music when “snap! crackle! pop!” and my 25 year old stereo receiver was toast. So off again I went to Best Buy for a new one. That was even more harrowing. The busy sales associate listened to my tale of woe and suggested a new Sony model – “This is really all you need sir.” Another good deal although I had to get a phono preamp later to play vinyl – apparently “modern” stereo receivers don’t offer them standard unless you get into Marantz territory.
But my story’s not done. On Cyber Monday – which comes after Black Friday don’tcha know – I switched on my 4 year old Dell laptop and heard “beep, beep, beep…” seven times. A quick Google search on another PC and I discovered that 7 beeps means motherboard failure. No point in attempting a repair, so away to the Cyber Monday sale at Staples and a new Lenovo machine.
I did get the Dell going briefly by (wait for it) wrapping it in a blanket and overheating the motherboard. I had time to take off my data and blow away the hard drive with a disk wiping program. Then the old unit was off to the recycle bin.
So that’s it. I did my thing for the Canadian economy this past holiday that really wasn’t.
You certainly did do your bit for the economy!