At 7:55 this morning I walked in to the Superstore on Young Street to pick up a few bananas to munch on during the day.
I walked out with a .. 32" led television.
Let me explain.
I overslept this morning like crazy. I got dressed as quickly as I could and we left the house barely 10 minutes later. After I dropped off Patricia, I realized I was starving, and I didn't want anything greasy, so I decided to pick up some fruit.
Of course, Black Friday has begun to infiltrate Canada in recent years. It has been a way for retailers to help keep Canadians from making long pilgrimages to the Boston states to pick up cheap electronics and other sundries. The grocery store by my work, part of a massive national chain, participates in this as best as it can. While other Superstores have actual electronics sections, this store, being much smaller, gets by with bringing in only what it can reasonably stock and sell.
Several times a year, local Superstores have tax-free weekends, or even just a tax-free Friday or something, where the amount equal to the provincial sales tax of 15% is deducted from the cost of an item.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I went in to get my bananas and saw the tax-free signs. I made my way up to the customer service desk, and on my way saw 40" tv's for $279. I was wondering if they might have smaller tv's, so I asked the lady if they had any smaller tv's. She said, "Besides these two?", and pointed to a brace of 32" tv's in front of me that my still-not-awake mind had not noticed. "Yeah, I guess like these two!", I muttered.
These smaller tv's were $159, taxes in, plus an environmental fee of 20-some dollars. I later found out that the very same television, the day before, had been $248 dollars, 90 dollars more expensive. And because of the "tax-free" days, I would save effectively another 15%. Yesterday, the tv would have cost $248x1.15 + ~$25=$310. Today, with the massive sale, it was $183 something. An incredible deal.
You will recall that I have been having problems with a refurbished tv I got in September at the former XS Cargo store in Bayers Lake. As recently as Wednesday evening, as I was having that meltdown trying to get this computer up and running again, I was experiencing the delights of being unable to watch anything on it, just catching the audio.
There was a guy on kijiji who was selling a television of about the same size as that one, a 24", and wanted $150 for it. What I got today is 33% larger, has more HDMI inputs, is brand-new, and cost only $33 more than what Buddy wanted for his. No-brainer, as the saying goes.
I carried the tv to my car and put it in the back seat. I used the rear seat safety belt to keep it in place, and then covered it with a throw I got last week at Costco. I drove across the street to my work and was never more grateful to be able to park my ride in a semi-secure parking lot. After all, I wanted to protect my investment.
I mostly set up the tv this evening. It is in my home office and doesn't dominate it as much as I thought it would. The picture is nice and crisp; I watched an HD news cast with it. Steve Murphy's shoe soles looked very life-like when he was interviewing Jane Tabor. I checked out netflix for a moment, and it looks grand. Now it is 10:40, and I am programming the local cable channels into it, and it is taking its sweet time to do it. I am guessing I will only have to do it once.
Tomorrow morning I will get up early and take that old piece of crap tv and put it in my car along with some other things and drive to the Valley for the weekend. The tv will be taken to the recycling place in New Minas, where I can wave a loud goodbye to it before I take my mother shopping for several hours and I return to the family home and collapse in a heap.
Think I will enjoy my new tv for a while. Will be a busy day tomorrow.
See you tomorrow.
Bevboy
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