Power Shopping
The Source
I had to find a toy. It was a joke gift and frankly, I’d not been in the toy department since Lincoln Logs were the hot Christmas item. Sometime between edging myself between a mother of three (with all three in tow) and a stockboy on a ladder, I began to muse about how my yuletide shopping habits have changed over the years. As a teenager I bought only dumb gifts…those “Perfect for Mom” gift baskets full of cheap colognes and powders that no one would buy separately. Dad got gloves…lots of gloves. Dad could easily have opened a glove store every January. As I matured I got a bit smarter and latched onto two ladies whom I’ll call Carole and Lois…since those were their names…who were the ultimate Power Shoppers. Carole was a fellow teacher and Lois headed up the Triopia kitchen. These were two ladies with bargain noses that any bloodhound would envy and when the Christmas rush was on, they were a 1970’s version of a well-honed GPS directional device. On the way to the mall they’d quiz me on what I wanted to buy. Answers like, “I don’t know,” or “Well, something nice,” does not go down well with a Power Shopper. “What do you mean you don’t know? You’ve got to know exactly what you want when we hit the floor!” And “Hit the floor” was not simply a metaphor. These gals literally hit the floor…running. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Iron Man contestants could train alongside Carole and Lois. They walked at what they considered a normal shopping pace. I jogged. I’m not stretching things…I had to jog through the mall. I was reminded of the day my dad decided that my brother and I should take our horses to move his herd of Angus cattle down the road. An Angus heifer can turn on a dime, suddenly leaving both you and the horse to flounder about trying to change directions. Power Shoppers have a nimbleness and dexterity akin to Angus. We would be cruising by Barnes and Noble, headed for Sears, when suddenly Carole would whip an exact 90-degree turn. Lois, her radar on her friend’s frequency, followed as surely as a flock of swooping swallows and I would be left somewhere near The Gap wondering where in the heck my guides had gone. But speed and direction were just two of the many devices these Power Shoppers had in their commercial toolbox. They knew the price of everything. Everything! And they could tell you what the price was before the so-called Christmas special. Over and over I’d pick up an item and Lois would shout….yes, Lois shouts in malls…after all, this is war....She’d shout, “Don’t buy that! They’ve raised the price for Christmas!” “But Lois, I want it!” “Put it down! We can get it cheaper on the second floor!” “Look, it’s my money and I’m tired of going up and down that escalator!” Then she’d moved in close and a conspiratorial tone threaten me with, “Do you want my help or not? There’s no use having experts if you don’t use them.” “Let’s go upstairs, Lois.” I’m still a farm boy at heart…polite, innocent, and probably naïve. I don’t step in front of people. I don’t care how pushily unfair my fellow shopper, I’ll always let you in line ahead of me. Not with Carole at your back. “Get up there!” she’d say. “But the old lady in line has no legs, she’s blind, and I think I heard her tell someone she had only days to live…leprosy, she said.” “She knows the rules!” said Carole. “You were here first!” Then she’d give me a persuasive nudge in the back that would leave the dying, handicapped, sightless leper to fend for herself. I’ve replaced Carole and Lois with Amazon.com to a large degree nowadays. I still see them occasionally but even though they’re both a bit older than me, they’ve not slowed a whit. Were I to take a Power Shopping tour with them today I’d be left in further in the Christmas bargain dust. But I must admit that I give some credibility to Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past. Late at night as I sit clicking on “Buy it now with one-click!” I hear voices behind me saying, “Idiot! It was half-price on Ebay!”