I jammed the syringe into Margaret’s leg; her agonized shriek tore through the stillness, finally bubbling down into a low moan as she ran out of air.
Not really.
Margaret’s rheumatoid arthritis went out of control two months ago. Her doctor had stopped the monthly injection that kept it at bay for reasons that I shall not elucidate; that’s her story. The result was that she had two visits to the emergency room for out-of-control pain and was confined to a local nursing home for six weeks. A month ago, the doctor prescribed daily injections of steroids to try to subdue the pain. They worked; she was able to return to her home ten days ago. But, the visiting nurse will not come daily; someone has to give her the injections when the nurse isn’t scheduled, three or four days a week.
Margaret has a friend who is a LPN but she can’t come all of the time. So, I observed injections a few times then took home a syringe and an empty medication bottle. I bought an orange to practice on. I called my sister, who has been an RN for many years, and got specific instructions on how to give an intramuscular injection. And I practiced on the orange. Every time, I talked myself through the process.
First, I pulled about .5cc of air into the syringe. Then, I used the needle to pierce the rubber stopper on the little bottle. With the syringe sticking out, I turned the bottle upside down, pushed the plunger to squirt air into the bottle, and drew a little more than .5 cc out of the bottle and into the syringe. Then, I turned the syringe needle-up and flicked it with a fingernail to move the air to the top. Then, I squirted out the air, leaving a small bubble of liquid at the tip. Next, I wiped my target spot (for the real thing, I used an alcohol wipe), darted the needle one inch into the flesh of the fruit, pulled back to check for "blood", then injected the contents into the flesh. I used the wipe to press against the side of the needle as I withdrew it, then applied gentle pressure for thirty seconds. Finally, I capped the needle carefully.
I injected the orange fifty or sixty times, refilling the bottle as needed. At first, I was very clumsy but with practice, handling the needle became less difficult. Finally, I felt like the orange had taught me all that it could.
On Thanksgiving Day, I had my check-ride. I went up to Shelburne Falls and waited for the visiting nurse. She was late; her first patient had more problems than she had been informed, so he took longer than she had budgeted. Finally, she arrived. I told her my set of directions; she said that I had it all down. I fumbled a bit as I drew up the medicine. She gave me a few hints, then showed me how to find a muscle. Margaret relaxed and I tried to insert the needle. I couldn’t do it; the needle wouldn’t pierce the skin. The nurse guided my hand to help me to place the needle. I completed the injection. Margaret didn’t scream or anything. She said it was pretty painless. I was pleased. I went home, cooked the turkey and baked my Black Forest Cake. I planned on giving the cake to John, so I did not add the alcohol called for in the recipe. We brought the cake to John just before Jack and I went off to the Black Friday sales. I had a slice, too. It was pretty good.
Today, I soloed. Margaret looked away as I cleaned the spot with an alcohol wipe. Once again, I had trouble getting the needle into the skin; the skin just dimpled but I gave the needle a little wiggle and it popped through. I completed the injection and, as I drew the needle out, I looked at Margaret’s face, searching for an indication of whether or not I had hurt her. She looked back at me with a slightly puzzled expression and asked when I was going to give her the shot. I grinned and exhaled with relief, then told her that it was all done. She hadn’t known when I gave it to her. Success! No agonized shrieks!
Schwarzuälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cherry Brandy Cake)
16 oz. Semi-sweet chocolate
Shave softened bar to make curls. Freeze. (I melt the chocolate instead, making a circular sheet for the top and two large rectangles for the sides. I cut these so each slice of cake gets a pie-shaped wedge on top and a tall rectangle on the side)
Preheat the oven to 350̇ degrees
Cake - directions makes one ten inch round layer. You need three (I only have one pan, which is why I give single layer directions).
Clarify 7 tablespoons of unsalted butter by melting the butter slowly, then discard the floating solids by skimming. The clarified butter is the pure, clear oil; throw out the milk solids on the bottom, too.
Combine 4 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 teaspoon vanilla
Beat at high speed until tripled in volume (about ten minutes)
Combine in a sifter
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
Gently fold 1/3 of the butter into the egg mixture until the butter is absorbed. Sift in 1/3 of dry mixture, folding gently. Continue adding the butter and dry ingredients alternately until combined. DO NOT OVERMIX! You worked hard to get a lot of air into the batter; don't lose it!
Bake at center of oven for 15 minutes, until a inserted toothpick comes out dry. Remove and cool for five minutes. Turn out onto a rack.
Repeat two more times to make a total of three layers.
In a saucepan, combine
1 ½ cups sugar
2 cups cold water
Bring to a boil, stirring only until the sugar is dissolved. Boil briskly, uncovered, for five minutes. Cool. Add
2/3 cup kirschwasser
Transfer cakes to waxed paper and prick lightly with a fork. Sprinkle with syrup. Allow to absorb for a couple of hours.
Thoroughly drain two cans of cherries packed in water. Discard the water.
In a cold metal bowl, beat
1 quart heavy cream
until peaks form. Add
1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup kischwasser
Stir until mixed.
Assembly.
Place one layer on a serving plate. Distribute half of the cherries on top. Spread with whipped cream. Add the second layer. Repeat cherries and cream. Add top layer. Frost cake and sides with remaining whipped cream. Press chocolate onto top and sides. I put the pie-shaped pieces on the top at an angle, so it looks pretty.
Refrigerate overnight for best flavor. Some of the liquid will ooze out around the edge, so be prepared for a mess if you do not remove it with a baster.
Makes twelve generous or sixteen normal portions.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Black Friday, 2010
Last night, Thanksgiving evening, Jack and I queued up before midnight at Target to buy a high definition TV when the store opened at 4 AM. To me, a 40 inch television is huge but I see that it is only moderately sized among the units advertised this year. Jack has been helping his grandmother a lot, lately, and she gave him enough money so he could indulge himself with his first major purchase. I wanted a $200 laptop from Walmart, which would open at 5 AM but decided to keep him company at Target rather than split up on this cold night. I’ll tell you what happened, but many of the things I noted in a prior shopping expedition still seem to be true. I wrote this in 2006, detailing our last all-night shopping trip.
Shop ‘til you drop
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when most stores open early with special promotional sales for early shoppers, has become a ritual for me. I enjoy getting up in the pre-dawn hours to stand in line at various stores, hunting for “deals.” Normally, the idea of getting up at an hour when I would prefer to be contemplating going to bed is anathema to me, but something about the chase for a great sale price makes it all OK. I like to complete my shopping no late than 10 AM, before the stores are completely overrun by later shoppers. This year (2006), I got in lines for the openings of different stores at 5 AM, 6 AM, and 7 AM, and got small door-buster items at all. Once each store opened, I was in and out of each store in less than ten minutes, then on to the next store. I also went to a couple of stores after they opened. This year, there were relatively few items that I was interested in - most stores primarily offered large screen panel or plasma TVs, which were out of my budget, despite the door-buster prices. I spent less than $300 in total, buying some clothing for myself, a few tools, electronic devices, and digital camera memory chips, then went home before 8 AM.
This year, Jack desperately wanted a Nintendo Wii. I didn’t know this when they first came out, a few days before Black Friday, and none of the stores that I went to that day had any left. Early in December, we went to Best Buy, to pick up a small accessory for Jack’s Game Boy. We ran into one of my students, Will, who works there. I commented that his name tag looked remarkably like the word, “Wii.” He told us that Target, next door, was going to have them in their flyer the next day, Sunday, and that if we went early, we might get one. That’s all it took. We decided to try our luck by going early, before the store opened. Mike was visiting, helping me insulate the rest of the second floor addition, and he was also game. I set my alarm clock for 5 AM, and we got to Target before 6 AM. We came with chairs and a few things to do while waiting for the store to open at 8 AM. Each of us planned to buy a game system and that we would put two of them up for sale on Ebay, to recompense us for our time (and also, as I’m only marginally employed, a way to pay for the unit that Jack wants to keep). There were 33 people already waiting when we arrived. I know this as someone had come prepared with a pad and, as people arrived, everyone signed the numbered list. We all understood that the list was not official, but we all agreed to honor it. This way, we didn’t have to stay in line and could freely mill around, talking to people. It made a fun but polite line.
We chatted with people who had arrived immediately before and after us. The fellow behind us came in shorts (the temperature was around 30 ) and said he had been fifth in line at a store that only had four units, and sixth at another store where they had only five units for sale on Black Friday. He told us that the game units came packaged in boxes of three, so he didn’t know how they had been limited to numbers that were not a multiple of three, but hypothesized that the two stores might have shared a shipment.
At 7:30 AM, the manager of Target came outside and said he would follow the list that we had created. We all reassembled into the line as the list-maker walked down it, calling names in order of arrival. The manager came back out and said that there were only 21 units. He handed out vouchers to the first 21 people, unlocked the mall doors so the lucky group could stay warm until the store opened, and the rest of us left. The fellow in shorts told us that Walmart was holding their Wii shipment for sale on the following Wednesday. Jack immediately began negotiating with me to allow him to camp out at Walmart on Tuesday, a school night. I said that any plans would depend on the weather.
The weather forecast for Tuesday night was cold - it had snowed a bit earlier in the day, but the sky had cleared by nightfall, allowing for radiational cooling. The temperature was going to drop to around 16 F. I vetoed the idea of Jack’s camping out, but suggested we might go to bed early and arrive at Walmart around 4 AM. We went to Walmart on Tuesday night and asked in the electronics department how many units they had for sale the next day. The fellow at the store thought there were around 10 units. We revised the plan and agreed to try to get to Walmart around 2 AM.
I went to bed around 6 PM and set my alarm for 1:20 AM. I actually got up around 1:40, and got Jack up by 2 AM. We left the house with blankets and chairs at 2:10 AM, arriving at the Hadley Walmart at 2:30 AM. There were four young men, college-aged, lingering in the parking lot. They told us that a woman had been waiting since 8:30 the night before and that she had started a list. We added our names, noting that we were numbers 5 and 6, which didn’t quite add up until one fellow told me that he was only there for moral support; he didn’t intend to purchase a Wii! About ten minutes after we arrived, a woman in her late 30s joined us, then another a bit later. The woman who had been waiting since the night before came back from warming up in her car and rejoined the line, bundled into a down comforter inside a down sleeping bag, all atop a papasan chair. Another young man, then the fellow who had been in shorts at Target on Sunday joined our band around 3 AM. All of the young men were students at the University of Massachusetts (about 5 miles away), all of the women (including me) planned to buy the game for their 15 or 16 year old sons. The father of another 15 year old boy arrived around 3:30 AM. One of the college boys told me that he was buying the game for Christmas for his 15 year old brother but also planned to share it.
I retreated to our car to warm up around 4:30 AM, leaving our chairs to hold our physical spaces. Jack came to warm his numb feet, too. Going back outside to wait in the cold was all the harder after the warm car. The college boys periodically left to get coffee and to use the bathroom at a nearly Dunkin’ Donuts. I didn’t drink anything but Jack had two Red Bulls that he had purchased at Walmart the night before; he also had to visit the facilities at Dunkin’s, discovering a board-bridge over the little stream that divided the two parking lots. Jack slipped off the board and soaked one of his shoes, dampening his sock. We both worried about the now-wet foot in the cold but he stayed on his feet to keep the blood flowing for the next three hours. Between 4 AM and 6 AM, around 30 more people arrived, with arrivals coming faster as the hour grew later.
Walmart opens at 7AM, but a sign on the outer door said that the Wii units would not go on sale until 8 AM. This Walmart has a small, enclosed porch area, with two sets of doors on opposite sides. We were all lined up on one side. Around 3 AM, we grew concerned that people might try to line up in the other side as well, so we posted a sign, saying that the Wii line was only on our side. The employee entrance was on the other side and we could see people entering the store, but, since they all saw the sign, all of the day’s employees knew what we were all waiting for. No one knew how many units would be available. A young man who had joined the line around 4:30 AM, when there were about 25 people in front of him, went into the store (he was apparently an employee) and came out, glumly stating, “Nine. I’m going home,” then left. This caused a few people to also leave, but most stayed. The first woman’s husband arrived to take her place, although she didn’t actually leave until after the store opened.
Around 6:15 AM, as the night sky was beginning to give way to dawn, I (and the other women) grew concerned that people who had arrived late would try to “jump” the line. Unlike at Target, the late-comers were edging closer and closer to the doors, crowding those of us who had arrived early into an increasingly smaller space between the doors and the wall. A couple of late comers were particularly aggressive in their attempts to get closer to the door, although no one provoked any actual fights. Around 6:30 AM, an assistant manager came out and seemed clueless about the need for order. We asked him if he would honor the list that we had made; he responded, “Well, it’s really up to YOU to honor the list.” The college boys assured him that they would reconstitute the line if he would honor the list. He said he would have to ask his manager and retreated back into the store.
The Target-shorts fellow, a burly young man who was more sensibly dressed on this cold night, took the list and started calling names, pointing to the places where each person should stand. The rear of the line still tried to crowd up, but the front had patience and so did he; he continued pointing and told people to move back if their names had not yet been called. Order was restored, although there were still a few men from the back lingering outside the line, as close to the front as they could be. The manager came out and said that there were, in fact, only nine units. Unlike Target, most of the line did not leave. Two young men, who had apparently tried to cut the line by entering through the employees door, were brought out of the store by the manager and told to go to the back of the line. They also lingered in the parking lot near the doors with a few other late arrivals. The manager opened a single door at 7 AM and handed numbered vouchers to the first nine people in line, repeating that he could not sell the units until 8 AM, that the sales computer was locked out for these items until then. Most of the late-comers left when all of the vouchers were distributed. It was finally apparent that there was no way to circumvent the order that the group had, collectively, agreed to. The manager told us that he would hold all units at the customer service desk at the front of the store and that we were free to do what we wanted until 8 AM.
I just wanted to be in the warm store; I was happy to wander around and window-shop, although I had intense chills about 20 minutes after I entered the store - I guess my body finally warmed up enough to discover that it was COLD. Jack rushed to the rear of the store to obtain accessories and game disks. There were no accessories in stock at the store but he got two of the games he wanted. By 7:45 AM, all nine of us (plus companions) eventually migrated to the coffee shop next to the customer service desk, to sit in relative warmth and comfort while we waited for the magic hour. We still continued to chat. All of us had met one or more of the others in the Target line and we had become comfortable chatting over the last five hours. Still, none of us exchanged names (as typical Americans, we wouldn’t).
The sales were rung up in the order we had been in line. The two men who had tried to cut in front by entering the store before it opened waited across from us, eyeing our vouchers and purchases almost hungrily. They apparently hoped that one of us wouldn’t appear at 8 AM, that we wouldn’t have the cash or credit to complete the purchase, or that the manager had undercounted the number of units for sale. We all bought our game systems uneventfully, and they finally went home, disappointed. No one who arrived after 3:15 AM was able to purchase a unit.
Next, we stopped by Target, to try to get an additional controller for the game. We met up with three of our companions, all the early arriving young men, also on a quest for additional accessories, but Target had run out, too.
Jack was tardy to school on Wednesday; school starts at 7:45 AM. He missed gym class, but he got his game. To him, it was a win-win situation, as he is not fond of gym class. I had another successful shopping excursion. Shopping really IS a sporting activity for some people! We’re still planning on putting the second unit up for sale on Ebay, but I’ll wait until the weekend, which will be two weeks before Christmas, which is, I think, the perfect time to offer such a thing for sale.
We were all such typical Americans. We never exchanged names, despite the apparent comradery of the night. The “winning” group was evenly distributed between Generation Y young men who wanted the game unit for themselves (and were old enough to afford to purchase this $250 item for themselves), and the parent of somewhat younger Generation Y teenaged boys, who were willing to indulge their offspring. The parents were typical parents of Generation Y children - kids who were considerably more indulged than their parents had been at a similar age.
Aftermath - 2006. I sold the Wii via Ebay to a local fellow for bit less than the cost of the two units, combined, so Jack got his Wii for a cost of about $50 to me. I handed it over to the buyer in the McDonald’s marking lot in Chicopee and we were both highly satisfied with the transaction.
Black Friday, 2010
Jack got his TV. Once again, there was a sign-in list at Target. We agreed to have an hourly roll-call. If someone missed the call twice, they lost their place in line. A cold rain started to fall shortly after midnight. Jack and I went inside the mall, which had been unlocked for the Best Buy line, to wait in relative warmth and comfort. We emerged hourly for check in, finally staying outside after the 3 AM check-in. By that time, the line at Target wound down the length of the store and wrapped around the far side. Employees came out and walked the line, explaining that anyone who ran would be escorted out and not allowed to purchase anything. Target had about thirty of the desired model of television and we were numbers 27 and 28 in line. We were in and out by 4:10 AM.
I had gone to the Cumberland Farms store about three miles away at 1:00 AM, to use the bathroom (it was the only place open), and had chatted with a Hadley cop who was there, getting coffee. He had expressed surprise at the vast number of people out to “save ten bucks by staying out all night.” I assured him that I was one of those lunatics and explained the list that we were employing at Target. He told me that Walmart had hired nine Hadley cops to maintain order at the store. Jack and I went to Walmart after Target; it opened its doors at 4 AM, so I walked in without any line with which to contend. The cop was at the door and he gave me a friendly challenge, “Hey! I thought you were going to Target!” I assured him that my shopping at Target was already completed and now I wanted a laptop! He grinned and wished me luck.
I found a store map and located the sale-place for the $200 dollar laptops (in with foods, not in electronics for the morning), but they were all gone. A clerk directed me to the line (in the pharmacy) for the $300 ones. I was number 21 in line and got one when they were handed out at 5:00 AM. I paid and was out in the rain, headed home, before 5:15, and securely tucked into my bed before 6 AM. My “newest” computer had been my desktop, which is over five years old. My last laptop was new for my 2004 trip to Mexico! It owes me nothing and it will be good to have a computer that should be reliable for the next few years. I’m not a kid; I don’t use a computer to play games (except for solitaire); mostly, I use a computer for writing and research, but I want the option of watching videos, so a netbook was not for me. This laptop’s screen is almost as big as my desktop’s monitor! I think this computer will serve my needs nicely. It isn’t too heavy and it wasn’t too expensive. The $200 computer was an emachine; the HP has more memory, a bigger hard drive, and more USB ports. I’m satisfied with my purchase.
I maintain that shopping is a sport that, in the past, primarily women competed in, but increasingly, men are now playing, too. As men have joined the fray, incidents of incivility have become more common but groups can enforce rules to control the otherwise unruly. When groups do not clearly determine and state these rules at the outset, store managers must, and it takes them years, fraught with unnecessary and hazardous chaos, to figure out a system that works for them. These systems usually involve law enforcement. I like it best when the group creates and enforces its own rules. And I had a good time this year.
Shop ‘til you drop
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when most stores open early with special promotional sales for early shoppers, has become a ritual for me. I enjoy getting up in the pre-dawn hours to stand in line at various stores, hunting for “deals.” Normally, the idea of getting up at an hour when I would prefer to be contemplating going to bed is anathema to me, but something about the chase for a great sale price makes it all OK. I like to complete my shopping no late than 10 AM, before the stores are completely overrun by later shoppers. This year (2006), I got in lines for the openings of different stores at 5 AM, 6 AM, and 7 AM, and got small door-buster items at all. Once each store opened, I was in and out of each store in less than ten minutes, then on to the next store. I also went to a couple of stores after they opened. This year, there were relatively few items that I was interested in - most stores primarily offered large screen panel or plasma TVs, which were out of my budget, despite the door-buster prices. I spent less than $300 in total, buying some clothing for myself, a few tools, electronic devices, and digital camera memory chips, then went home before 8 AM.
This year, Jack desperately wanted a Nintendo Wii. I didn’t know this when they first came out, a few days before Black Friday, and none of the stores that I went to that day had any left. Early in December, we went to Best Buy, to pick up a small accessory for Jack’s Game Boy. We ran into one of my students, Will, who works there. I commented that his name tag looked remarkably like the word, “Wii.” He told us that Target, next door, was going to have them in their flyer the next day, Sunday, and that if we went early, we might get one. That’s all it took. We decided to try our luck by going early, before the store opened. Mike was visiting, helping me insulate the rest of the second floor addition, and he was also game. I set my alarm clock for 5 AM, and we got to Target before 6 AM. We came with chairs and a few things to do while waiting for the store to open at 8 AM. Each of us planned to buy a game system and that we would put two of them up for sale on Ebay, to recompense us for our time (and also, as I’m only marginally employed, a way to pay for the unit that Jack wants to keep). There were 33 people already waiting when we arrived. I know this as someone had come prepared with a pad and, as people arrived, everyone signed the numbered list. We all understood that the list was not official, but we all agreed to honor it. This way, we didn’t have to stay in line and could freely mill around, talking to people. It made a fun but polite line.
We chatted with people who had arrived immediately before and after us. The fellow behind us came in shorts (the temperature was around 30 ) and said he had been fifth in line at a store that only had four units, and sixth at another store where they had only five units for sale on Black Friday. He told us that the game units came packaged in boxes of three, so he didn’t know how they had been limited to numbers that were not a multiple of three, but hypothesized that the two stores might have shared a shipment.
At 7:30 AM, the manager of Target came outside and said he would follow the list that we had created. We all reassembled into the line as the list-maker walked down it, calling names in order of arrival. The manager came back out and said that there were only 21 units. He handed out vouchers to the first 21 people, unlocked the mall doors so the lucky group could stay warm until the store opened, and the rest of us left. The fellow in shorts told us that Walmart was holding their Wii shipment for sale on the following Wednesday. Jack immediately began negotiating with me to allow him to camp out at Walmart on Tuesday, a school night. I said that any plans would depend on the weather.
The weather forecast for Tuesday night was cold - it had snowed a bit earlier in the day, but the sky had cleared by nightfall, allowing for radiational cooling. The temperature was going to drop to around 16 F. I vetoed the idea of Jack’s camping out, but suggested we might go to bed early and arrive at Walmart around 4 AM. We went to Walmart on Tuesday night and asked in the electronics department how many units they had for sale the next day. The fellow at the store thought there were around 10 units. We revised the plan and agreed to try to get to Walmart around 2 AM.
I went to bed around 6 PM and set my alarm for 1:20 AM. I actually got up around 1:40, and got Jack up by 2 AM. We left the house with blankets and chairs at 2:10 AM, arriving at the Hadley Walmart at 2:30 AM. There were four young men, college-aged, lingering in the parking lot. They told us that a woman had been waiting since 8:30 the night before and that she had started a list. We added our names, noting that we were numbers 5 and 6, which didn’t quite add up until one fellow told me that he was only there for moral support; he didn’t intend to purchase a Wii! About ten minutes after we arrived, a woman in her late 30s joined us, then another a bit later. The woman who had been waiting since the night before came back from warming up in her car and rejoined the line, bundled into a down comforter inside a down sleeping bag, all atop a papasan chair. Another young man, then the fellow who had been in shorts at Target on Sunday joined our band around 3 AM. All of the young men were students at the University of Massachusetts (about 5 miles away), all of the women (including me) planned to buy the game for their 15 or 16 year old sons. The father of another 15 year old boy arrived around 3:30 AM. One of the college boys told me that he was buying the game for Christmas for his 15 year old brother but also planned to share it.
I retreated to our car to warm up around 4:30 AM, leaving our chairs to hold our physical spaces. Jack came to warm his numb feet, too. Going back outside to wait in the cold was all the harder after the warm car. The college boys periodically left to get coffee and to use the bathroom at a nearly Dunkin’ Donuts. I didn’t drink anything but Jack had two Red Bulls that he had purchased at Walmart the night before; he also had to visit the facilities at Dunkin’s, discovering a board-bridge over the little stream that divided the two parking lots. Jack slipped off the board and soaked one of his shoes, dampening his sock. We both worried about the now-wet foot in the cold but he stayed on his feet to keep the blood flowing for the next three hours. Between 4 AM and 6 AM, around 30 more people arrived, with arrivals coming faster as the hour grew later.
Walmart opens at 7AM, but a sign on the outer door said that the Wii units would not go on sale until 8 AM. This Walmart has a small, enclosed porch area, with two sets of doors on opposite sides. We were all lined up on one side. Around 3 AM, we grew concerned that people might try to line up in the other side as well, so we posted a sign, saying that the Wii line was only on our side. The employee entrance was on the other side and we could see people entering the store, but, since they all saw the sign, all of the day’s employees knew what we were all waiting for. No one knew how many units would be available. A young man who had joined the line around 4:30 AM, when there were about 25 people in front of him, went into the store (he was apparently an employee) and came out, glumly stating, “Nine. I’m going home,” then left. This caused a few people to also leave, but most stayed. The first woman’s husband arrived to take her place, although she didn’t actually leave until after the store opened.
Around 6:15 AM, as the night sky was beginning to give way to dawn, I (and the other women) grew concerned that people who had arrived late would try to “jump” the line. Unlike at Target, the late-comers were edging closer and closer to the doors, crowding those of us who had arrived early into an increasingly smaller space between the doors and the wall. A couple of late comers were particularly aggressive in their attempts to get closer to the door, although no one provoked any actual fights. Around 6:30 AM, an assistant manager came out and seemed clueless about the need for order. We asked him if he would honor the list that we had made; he responded, “Well, it’s really up to YOU to honor the list.” The college boys assured him that they would reconstitute the line if he would honor the list. He said he would have to ask his manager and retreated back into the store.
The Target-shorts fellow, a burly young man who was more sensibly dressed on this cold night, took the list and started calling names, pointing to the places where each person should stand. The rear of the line still tried to crowd up, but the front had patience and so did he; he continued pointing and told people to move back if their names had not yet been called. Order was restored, although there were still a few men from the back lingering outside the line, as close to the front as they could be. The manager came out and said that there were, in fact, only nine units. Unlike Target, most of the line did not leave. Two young men, who had apparently tried to cut the line by entering through the employees door, were brought out of the store by the manager and told to go to the back of the line. They also lingered in the parking lot near the doors with a few other late arrivals. The manager opened a single door at 7 AM and handed numbered vouchers to the first nine people in line, repeating that he could not sell the units until 8 AM, that the sales computer was locked out for these items until then. Most of the late-comers left when all of the vouchers were distributed. It was finally apparent that there was no way to circumvent the order that the group had, collectively, agreed to. The manager told us that he would hold all units at the customer service desk at the front of the store and that we were free to do what we wanted until 8 AM.
I just wanted to be in the warm store; I was happy to wander around and window-shop, although I had intense chills about 20 minutes after I entered the store - I guess my body finally warmed up enough to discover that it was COLD. Jack rushed to the rear of the store to obtain accessories and game disks. There were no accessories in stock at the store but he got two of the games he wanted. By 7:45 AM, all nine of us (plus companions) eventually migrated to the coffee shop next to the customer service desk, to sit in relative warmth and comfort while we waited for the magic hour. We still continued to chat. All of us had met one or more of the others in the Target line and we had become comfortable chatting over the last five hours. Still, none of us exchanged names (as typical Americans, we wouldn’t).
The sales were rung up in the order we had been in line. The two men who had tried to cut in front by entering the store before it opened waited across from us, eyeing our vouchers and purchases almost hungrily. They apparently hoped that one of us wouldn’t appear at 8 AM, that we wouldn’t have the cash or credit to complete the purchase, or that the manager had undercounted the number of units for sale. We all bought our game systems uneventfully, and they finally went home, disappointed. No one who arrived after 3:15 AM was able to purchase a unit.
Next, we stopped by Target, to try to get an additional controller for the game. We met up with three of our companions, all the early arriving young men, also on a quest for additional accessories, but Target had run out, too.
Jack was tardy to school on Wednesday; school starts at 7:45 AM. He missed gym class, but he got his game. To him, it was a win-win situation, as he is not fond of gym class. I had another successful shopping excursion. Shopping really IS a sporting activity for some people! We’re still planning on putting the second unit up for sale on Ebay, but I’ll wait until the weekend, which will be two weeks before Christmas, which is, I think, the perfect time to offer such a thing for sale.
We were all such typical Americans. We never exchanged names, despite the apparent comradery of the night. The “winning” group was evenly distributed between Generation Y young men who wanted the game unit for themselves (and were old enough to afford to purchase this $250 item for themselves), and the parent of somewhat younger Generation Y teenaged boys, who were willing to indulge their offspring. The parents were typical parents of Generation Y children - kids who were considerably more indulged than their parents had been at a similar age.
Aftermath - 2006. I sold the Wii via Ebay to a local fellow for bit less than the cost of the two units, combined, so Jack got his Wii for a cost of about $50 to me. I handed it over to the buyer in the McDonald’s marking lot in Chicopee and we were both highly satisfied with the transaction.
Black Friday, 2010
Jack got his TV. Once again, there was a sign-in list at Target. We agreed to have an hourly roll-call. If someone missed the call twice, they lost their place in line. A cold rain started to fall shortly after midnight. Jack and I went inside the mall, which had been unlocked for the Best Buy line, to wait in relative warmth and comfort. We emerged hourly for check in, finally staying outside after the 3 AM check-in. By that time, the line at Target wound down the length of the store and wrapped around the far side. Employees came out and walked the line, explaining that anyone who ran would be escorted out and not allowed to purchase anything. Target had about thirty of the desired model of television and we were numbers 27 and 28 in line. We were in and out by 4:10 AM.
I had gone to the Cumberland Farms store about three miles away at 1:00 AM, to use the bathroom (it was the only place open), and had chatted with a Hadley cop who was there, getting coffee. He had expressed surprise at the vast number of people out to “save ten bucks by staying out all night.” I assured him that I was one of those lunatics and explained the list that we were employing at Target. He told me that Walmart had hired nine Hadley cops to maintain order at the store. Jack and I went to Walmart after Target; it opened its doors at 4 AM, so I walked in without any line with which to contend. The cop was at the door and he gave me a friendly challenge, “Hey! I thought you were going to Target!” I assured him that my shopping at Target was already completed and now I wanted a laptop! He grinned and wished me luck.
I found a store map and located the sale-place for the $200 dollar laptops (in with foods, not in electronics for the morning), but they were all gone. A clerk directed me to the line (in the pharmacy) for the $300 ones. I was number 21 in line and got one when they were handed out at 5:00 AM. I paid and was out in the rain, headed home, before 5:15, and securely tucked into my bed before 6 AM. My “newest” computer had been my desktop, which is over five years old. My last laptop was new for my 2004 trip to Mexico! It owes me nothing and it will be good to have a computer that should be reliable for the next few years. I’m not a kid; I don’t use a computer to play games (except for solitaire); mostly, I use a computer for writing and research, but I want the option of watching videos, so a netbook was not for me. This laptop’s screen is almost as big as my desktop’s monitor! I think this computer will serve my needs nicely. It isn’t too heavy and it wasn’t too expensive. The $200 computer was an emachine; the HP has more memory, a bigger hard drive, and more USB ports. I’m satisfied with my purchase.
I maintain that shopping is a sport that, in the past, primarily women competed in, but increasingly, men are now playing, too. As men have joined the fray, incidents of incivility have become more common but groups can enforce rules to control the otherwise unruly. When groups do not clearly determine and state these rules at the outset, store managers must, and it takes them years, fraught with unnecessary and hazardous chaos, to figure out a system that works for them. These systems usually involve law enforcement. I like it best when the group creates and enforces its own rules. And I had a good time this year.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Starfish
How do I explain the last two weeks? What would you do in my place?
I am currently unemployed. I receive less than half of my income as a teacher from unemployment; in return, I am taking a course in entrepreneurship with the intent of opening a specialized electronics business with Jack as soon as we having a working prototype. I’ll be writing about this when it’s done, but I am slipping further and further into debt each week. When the taxes are due on my house every three months, I have to use my home equity loan to pay the bill. I’m broke. Christmas is going to be very sparse this year, although a cash gift from a relative is going to make a few small, token gifts a possibility.
I taught math in an inner city public school for two years, until I got sick last spring. This school was (and is) a special and unusual place; every student is routinely told that they can and must go to college, and, eventually, they believe it. It’s a relatively new school, admitting its first class of freshmen five years ago. The students in that class (last year’s graduates) were all accepted to at least one college. The second class, those funny, crazy, talented kids who populated my tenth grade math classes during my first year there, is now the senior class.
One of them (let’s call her Amelia) hated me, even considered me her enemy, for the first half of that year. I was demanding, requiring her to serve detention (and do her math homework) for goofing off in class. Then, we broke through. She had some minor accomplishment and I praised her as thoroughly as I had previously chastised her. She’s very smart but has a boatload of baggage; she was in the foster care system for several years, through ninth grade. During this time, she had been convinced that she would never amount to much. As a tenth grader, she was finally living with her parents but they have serious problems (serious mental instability and drug abuse are only a small part of the family’s litany of problems, although her parents truly love each other).
Neither parent ever attended any of the school’s “mandatory” events, like student-led family conferences. Three times each year, students are required to formally present all of the information that would normally be disseminated at a parent-teacher conference. Amelia made those presentations but she always had to find someone to cover for her missing parents, usually a teacher. Amelia is not a saint; she had a short period of promiscuity and other illicit experimentation, but, in my non-expert opinion, it was acting out. She has never has stopped trying to improve herself since we finally convinced her that she has a bright future.
For a year and a half, we talked at lunchtime and after school. She confided in me. When her family threw her out for going out to a party, she called me. We found a friend who took her in temporarily. She eventually moved in with another family member. When she was raped by a “friend”, I took her to the hospital for treatment. We texted frequently after school ended. Last year, when her guardian’s house burned down, I picked her up and helped her to decide what to do for the immediate future. She moved back home a few days later and stayed there through the summer. I took her for a summer job interview, which she had no difficulty obtaining. I frequently gave her rides to and from work when her parents refused.
She’s now a senior in high school, being scouted by Ivy League schools. After an argument in September, her mom threw her out of the house, again. This was the fourth time (that I know of); each time, she was out of the house for at least three months. She’s been out of her house for well over half of the last two years. She went to her boyfriend’s house, but that wasn’t good; they fought constantly from being in such close quarters. His mom asked her to leave after the boy was disrespectful to the mom.
Once again, she called me in distress. She had nowhere to go. She is seventeen years old, too old for social services to want to be involved, but too young (and too poor) to get an apartment on her own. She cannot go home. What would you do? What do you think I did?
I’m broke. However, I believe in starfish. There’s an old story of a girl at the beach who finds stranded starfish, gasping, twitching, and dying, as far as the eye can see. At first, she is horrified, then she starts picking them up and flinging them back into the ocean. Another person, walking in the opposite direction, asks her what she thinks she is doing; she cannot save them all. The girl replies, “I’m making a difference for THIS one!” as she flings a starfish into the water. “And THIS one!” as she flings another.She saves as many as she can.
I may not be able to save all kids, but maybe I can make a difference in the live of just one. Do we really need (and can society afford) another inner city high school drop-out, on and off welfare and in and out of trouble for life? I believe that this kid is going to be a force in the world but whether a force for good or for ill will be determined this year. Amelia is my starfish. I won’t be substantially more broke with her in my aquarium.
PS. I’m sure she’ll hate the pseudonym!
PPSS. Happy Thanksgiving!
I am currently unemployed. I receive less than half of my income as a teacher from unemployment; in return, I am taking a course in entrepreneurship with the intent of opening a specialized electronics business with Jack as soon as we having a working prototype. I’ll be writing about this when it’s done, but I am slipping further and further into debt each week. When the taxes are due on my house every three months, I have to use my home equity loan to pay the bill. I’m broke. Christmas is going to be very sparse this year, although a cash gift from a relative is going to make a few small, token gifts a possibility.
I taught math in an inner city public school for two years, until I got sick last spring. This school was (and is) a special and unusual place; every student is routinely told that they can and must go to college, and, eventually, they believe it. It’s a relatively new school, admitting its first class of freshmen five years ago. The students in that class (last year’s graduates) were all accepted to at least one college. The second class, those funny, crazy, talented kids who populated my tenth grade math classes during my first year there, is now the senior class.
One of them (let’s call her Amelia) hated me, even considered me her enemy, for the first half of that year. I was demanding, requiring her to serve detention (and do her math homework) for goofing off in class. Then, we broke through. She had some minor accomplishment and I praised her as thoroughly as I had previously chastised her. She’s very smart but has a boatload of baggage; she was in the foster care system for several years, through ninth grade. During this time, she had been convinced that she would never amount to much. As a tenth grader, she was finally living with her parents but they have serious problems (serious mental instability and drug abuse are only a small part of the family’s litany of problems, although her parents truly love each other).
Neither parent ever attended any of the school’s “mandatory” events, like student-led family conferences. Three times each year, students are required to formally present all of the information that would normally be disseminated at a parent-teacher conference. Amelia made those presentations but she always had to find someone to cover for her missing parents, usually a teacher. Amelia is not a saint; she had a short period of promiscuity and other illicit experimentation, but, in my non-expert opinion, it was acting out. She has never has stopped trying to improve herself since we finally convinced her that she has a bright future.
For a year and a half, we talked at lunchtime and after school. She confided in me. When her family threw her out for going out to a party, she called me. We found a friend who took her in temporarily. She eventually moved in with another family member. When she was raped by a “friend”, I took her to the hospital for treatment. We texted frequently after school ended. Last year, when her guardian’s house burned down, I picked her up and helped her to decide what to do for the immediate future. She moved back home a few days later and stayed there through the summer. I took her for a summer job interview, which she had no difficulty obtaining. I frequently gave her rides to and from work when her parents refused.
She’s now a senior in high school, being scouted by Ivy League schools. After an argument in September, her mom threw her out of the house, again. This was the fourth time (that I know of); each time, she was out of the house for at least three months. She’s been out of her house for well over half of the last two years. She went to her boyfriend’s house, but that wasn’t good; they fought constantly from being in such close quarters. His mom asked her to leave after the boy was disrespectful to the mom.
Once again, she called me in distress. She had nowhere to go. She is seventeen years old, too old for social services to want to be involved, but too young (and too poor) to get an apartment on her own. She cannot go home. What would you do? What do you think I did?
I’m broke. However, I believe in starfish. There’s an old story of a girl at the beach who finds stranded starfish, gasping, twitching, and dying, as far as the eye can see. At first, she is horrified, then she starts picking them up and flinging them back into the ocean. Another person, walking in the opposite direction, asks her what she thinks she is doing; she cannot save them all. The girl replies, “I’m making a difference for THIS one!” as she flings a starfish into the water. “And THIS one!” as she flings another.She saves as many as she can.
I may not be able to save all kids, but maybe I can make a difference in the live of just one. Do we really need (and can society afford) another inner city high school drop-out, on and off welfare and in and out of trouble for life? I believe that this kid is going to be a force in the world but whether a force for good or for ill will be determined this year. Amelia is my starfish. I won’t be substantially more broke with her in my aquarium.
PS. I’m sure she’ll hate the pseudonym!
PPSS. Happy Thanksgiving!
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