Each issue of Galaxy Brain will contain one chapter of Kathryn McLeod’s fantastic book,  “THAT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU–YOU SHOULD BUY IT!” This is the ninth chapter. You can read the other chapters here:

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven 
Chapter Eight

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Chapter Nine

BBBlack FFFriday

“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.” G.K. Chesterton

“Alcohol is the devil and I need Chinese food.” Rihanna

While Lindsay and I were getting to know each other, Black Friday was being set up all around us by other sales associates, infilling and rearranging and getting as much crap out from the back as could possibly fit in the front.

And still the stockroom seemed too full to take on another load.

Also, I had to admit, everyone seemed to be having fun, especially setting up the “sucker sale” sections.

And soon Gwen was out front again, organizing positions and pep-talking the troops, while a restless, vaguely menacing looking crowd of middle-aged women, who would normally be at home in their pajamas having coffee, formed on the other side of the locked doors. By 6:30 a.m. our coffee and donuts had been moved to the back, out of sight of the crowd, both coffee and donuts long gone by the time the big guns arrived for their eight hour shifts, which would be staggered throughout the day for maximum sales power in the afternoon.

Later, I asked Gwen why we couldn’t always have eight hour shifts.

“So Gwen, how come on Black Friday we get eight hour shifts but the rest of the time it’s only four? I’m spending at least a half hour on bus fare, and a full hour if I throw in a muffin and a coffee once I get to the mall. I’m totally addicted to those gingerbread muffins at Second Cup. And obviously I’d be way better off financially with three eight hour shifts a week than three four hour shifts a week.”

“The studies have been done, Katie. Sales associates are only good for four hours, then your performance goes down and you’re no longer functioning at an optimal level. You’re already a wage cost, don’t forget. Chestertons needs you to be functioning at least at an optimal level when you’re on the floor. It’s not personal, it’s business. You’re not worth it after four hours.”

I don’t know, I guess it was all those Pollyanna Sunshine speeches delivered by Deputy Ministers during the Great Layoff Season of 2012, forecasts of brighter days and greener pastures right around the corner (as long as it wasn’t located anywhere near a government building) that made me appreciate Gwen not sugar-coating what employers really thought of employees and our prospects.

And to give Gwen her due, she was very consistent in her lack of sugar-coating on other topics, too, because one night, after the shoplifting incident, we were having a human-to-almost-human conversation about “kids today”, when I mentioned one of my, uh, a friend’s daughter getting caught leaving a store with a bra stuffed in her pocket and being banned from the mall.

The mall even had her mugshot up for a while, which I was surprised was legal, but there went she, not to the mall for at least a year. Once that year was up, though, she went back with a vengeance, getting herself two jobs in two different stores, all sins forgiven.

Now, Gwen had been very open with me (on the sales floor, too, something she discouraged in everybody else) about her disappointment with her mother for keeping from her what it was going to be like, having kids, which was why immediately after Libby was born her husband was dispatched to the nearest clinic for an emergency vasectomy.

Alas, kids being people, Gwen’s disappointment with her mother only increased as Libby grew older, and eventually the disappointing grandma was relegated to emergency childcare only, which, due to Gwen’s disappointment with everyone else in society, meant grandma had more than enough access to her grandchild.

“Well I’ll tell you something, Katie, when Libby was four she stole a chocolate bar. We were stuck in a convenience store line while every idiot in town bought a lottery ticket, people are so disappointing, giving Libby lots of time to survey all the candy on display. Several times she asked if she could have a chocolate bar and several times I said no. Well, halfway to the car, what do I notice but Libby clutching a chocolate bar in her mitten. So I marched her back to the store immediately, waited in line ALL OVER AGAIN, and when we FINALLY got to the cash again, informed the owner of her thievery. And Katie, you would not believe how relaxed he was about it, EVEN OFFERING TO LET HER HAVE IT. I was livid. Imagine, a store owner abdicating his responsibility to society like that, leaving it entirely up to me to teach the thief, the person who stole from HIS STORE, the lesson myself. I was so disappointed. He left me with no choice but to pay for the chocolate bar and then make Libby watch while I tossed it in the garbage behind the counter. Then I explained to her what would happen if she ever did it again, which is that she would be made to walk up and down the street in front of the store she’d stolen from wearing a sign that had I AM A THIEF in big black letters written on it.”

“Whoa, Gwen. A four year old-”

“Don’t make excuses for her, Katie. I refuse to be one of those helicopter parents who excuses kids for bad behaviour just because they’re kids. By the way, I hear one of yours boomeranged home. Well here’s just a little heads up – my parents let my brother boomerang home, too. Twenty-five years ago. And now he’s 46 and sleeps in a room with Star Wars themed wallpaper. Think about that.”

And boy did I ever. Every time I came home to an empty granola container, the granola being of the very expensive homemade variety meant to be sprinkled by the teaspoon over yogurt, as opposed to scarfed down over the sink from a bowl filled to the brim with the last of the organic cream meant for shade-grown fair-trade organic coffee in the morning.

But back to Black Friday.

I guess the best thing I can say about Black Friday is that, having seen it up close, I no longer fear the Apocalypse. I may even welcome it. And now I know how to distract middle-aged professional women away from precious resources like water and food, leaving more for me, which is by tossing an overpriced cashmere sweater on markdown up in the air and letting them fight each other to the death for it.

As predicted by Lindsay, Gwen positioned me as a runner, so back and forth to the stockroom I ran, no break for eight hours, and for the same minimum wage I’d make for any other shift, while women pushed, shoved and called each other names, storming out of the store, storming back in again, and generally behaving like the medieval villagers always do in those Monty Python movies.

It was madness, but within minutes of opening there were two lines at the cash, both reaching out into the hall, lines full of women who had clearly (to me, anyway) lost their minds, and other sales associates, keyholders, and managers ALL seemingly having the time of their lives. But me, I just went stupid, running back and forth to the stock room for eight hours straight, no break, not even a pit stop to the washroom.

And then I did it all again a year later. (Although not a year after that because that Black Friday was also my last day, and I couldn’t get any stupider than I already was by giving two weeks’ notice that meant Black Friday was my last day and not the day before Black Friday.)

At one point, that first Black Friday, I even witnessed Gwen break up a fight between two women who were kicking at each other while engaged in a tug of war over a cashmere sweater – the very one Esther had nixed as a purchase possibility for one of the university girls who was trying to suck up to Gwen for more shifts by buying something to wear to work.

“No, don’t buy the cashmere in misty wisteria because the next brand moment has a lot of red in it and you’ll clash with the store, although finally Katie won’t. Wait for the merino wool and hope there’s navy. You shouldn’t be wasting your money on silly colours. And I don’t like to harp as you know, but you girls don’t take proper care of cashmere and it just pills and turns off customers from buying them. Oh my wordy word, I have no idea why we got so many of them and in Easter shades before Christmas. But I’ll bet my daughter-in-law’s petunias there’s a graduate of higher learning involved.”

(I did my level best to discourage the university girls from buying clothes from Chestertons, which they did in hopes that it would translate into more shifts. And I made some headway, but not nearly as much as I would have liked.)

Anyway, Gwen wedged herself between these two women and flipped a coin if you can believe it. I couldn’t. Still can’t. So I don’t blame you if you don’t.

The thing is, my reaction to Black Friday was just more proof that I had no business being in retail. The other sales associates, to a woman, were hi’-fiving, doing victory dances, and chatting to customers like they hadn’t all just lost that one shred of humanity that separates us from the CEOs. All while Justin Bieber screeched from the soundtrack, the volume amped for added excitement/torture, “Saaaaanta Claus is coming to town, Saaaaanta Clause is coming to town, San. Ta. Claus. Is. Co. Ming. To. Tow-ow-ow-own”.

Having gained some perspective between then and now, I realize why the other sales associates enjoyed Black Friday while I found it to be a dystopian nightmare that left me welcoming the release of megatons of methane from those giant holes opening up in Siberia.

It wasn’t boring.

Black Friday’s eight hours flew by like a regular four hour shift never did.

At the time, though, I couldn’t get past a ladieswear store in Ottawa, with a customer base ranging from middle-aged public service director to “holy shit, she’s still driving?!”, looking by 9:00 a.m. not unlike those annual news images of Americans trampling each other to death over flat screen tv deals on their Black Friday.

But I’d never even been on the customer side of the counter on a Black Friday.

Cripes, I’d never even been to Bay Days!

<pause… honesty/reality check… one… two… three…>

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m virtue-signaling. And if you aren’t thinking I’m virtue-signalling, you certainly should be.

What? You don’t know what virtue-signaling is?

Oh. Wow. Be very glad you’re reading this book then because you should definitely know what virtue-signalling is.

Virtue-signaling, now that I know what it is, turns out to be something I do all the time, particularly on Facebook. In fact, it may be all I do on Facebook, and I have to say, it’s really cramped my style, learning about it, which I did in the course of commenting on a post about climate change, when I added at the end of my blah blah that I didn’t own a car. This in turn prompted someone else to comment that they didn’t own a microwave, which was annoying because not owning a car is entirely different from not owning a microwave, although I don’t own a microwave, either. But she “liked” my comment so I “liked” hers. Then a third person commented that not owning a car sounded like privilege to him, in that I could choose to not own a car.

And this is true, actually. Steverino and I are able-bodied and close to public transit and also enjoy saving a shit ton of money by not owning a car. But I didn’t “like” his comment because phuck that guy.

I’m a middle-aged woman, dammit!

But then a fourth person commented.

“Wow. What a bunch of morons. #VirtueSignalFail. Tell someone with fused discs in his back and a spastic colon who has to drive a deathtrap without insurance to get to his crap job to feed his family of six about how you don’t own a car! And you, other idiot, you don’t own a microwave? Hahahahahaha! A stove uses ten times the energy of a microwave. Hahahahahahaha! Or do you only eat at organic vegan restaurants? Get haircuts, ya granola chomping chowderheads! God is dead! Hahahahahahaha!”

And the worst part of knowing about virtue-signaling is that it totally ruined an Anna Lappe quote I used to post all over the internet: “Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want”.

Ugh. That sucker’s got #VirtueSignalFailToTheMax written all over it, doesn’t it?

Not to mention that if I’m casting a vote for the kind of world I want every time I spend money, our children and their children and their children’s children are in for one cheap ass future.

“Your money or your life, lady!”

“Ooh, tough call. Lemme see. How much life do I have left, realistically, I mean. Forty years would take me pretty close to a hundred, but I’ve had a decent fifty some odd already. And I hate to part with money. Okay, I’ve chosen. Take my life. No point in living without this twenty dollar bill sewn into my Dollarama-roos for shade-grown fair-trade organic coffee emergency.”

My favourite pastime as a child was finding and then dropping money into a piggybank that just had a slot, no plug at the bottom to get at the money.

When I first heard the joke below, I thought it was history because I’m half Scottish and half Dutch.

Q: How was copper wire invented?

A: Two Scotsmen fighting over a penny.

I’d like to say that I don’t shop retail because it’s an exploitative racket at every stage of the supply chain that does more harm than good to people around the world, but really, I’m in my downsizing years and so don’t shop much. Otherwise, I love a bargain. I’m a thrift shopper, ferchrissake. But the gods of hoop jumping juice only doled me out so much of it, and I need it all for getting to the edge-of-the-abyss stage of federal government job competitions.

I just don’t have it left over for Midnight Madness at the mall.

<pause… honesty/reality check… one… two… three…>

Okay, I was pretending back there in chapter… five? when I pretended to Tj that I’d just been pretending to Esther that I didn’t know Black Friday was coming up. I actually had no idea that Canada had a Black Friday. And then I put it out of my mind that it could be anything like what everybody around me was saying it was going to be like, because it just sounded to me like they’d been watching too many news reels of Americans trampling each other to death over flat screen tv deals on their Black Friday.

So now I think whoever brought Black Friday to Canada should be forced to listen to Justin Bieber screeching, “Saaaaanta Claus is coming to town, Saaaaanta Clause is coming to town, San. Ta. Claus. Is. Co. Ming. To. Tow-ow-ow-own” from Remembrance Day until Boxing Week.

It is odd, though, because I thought I’d have a lot more to say about Black Friday back when this book was just a twinkle in Arlene’s eye than I do now that I’m actually writing it. But I guess the one day spectacular awfulness of Black Friday was ultimately overwhelmed by the regular day-to-day awfulness of retail.  For sure, having experienced Black Friday from one side of the counter I have no desire to experience it from the other. But that’s pretty much how it was and would be for me anyway. I still go through the mall I used to work at, but it’s just to get to the other side, there being no way around it, as far as I know.

Imagine. Some jerk got the right of way from the City of Ottawa to plunk a great big huge mall, or obstruction, as I think of it now, in the middle of my way from one bus to another.

Hey, he should also be forced to listen to Justin Bieber screeching, “Saaaaanta Claus is coming to town, Saaaaanta Clause is coming to town, San. Ta. Claus. Is. Co. Ming. To. Tow-ow-ow-own” from Remembrance Day until Boxing Week.

But this whole sale thing, the concept that we’re getting a deal when we buy something on sale takes me back a few years to a column I read by Leah McLaren in the Globe and Mail. It was about the false economy of discounts, reduced prices, markdowns, and it struck a chord with thrift shopping me, which was a hard thing to admit because I was quite jealous that Leah McLaren had a column in the Globe and Mail.

Why was I jealous that Leah McLaren had a column in the Globe and Mail?

<humble brag alert>

Because I only got as far as the Ottawa Citizen.

It was back in my married homemaker and mother-of-three life when I made it into the Ottawa Citizen. Like responsible Ottawa citizens, Andy and I faithfully subscribed, even after it was taken over by a cacophony of conservatives, whose grand poobah would eventually do time in an American prison for fraud, a crime our own system of justice apparently doesn’t condescend to prosecute.

Then one day the Red Emma in me had finally had enough and I penned a rebuttal to a column by a particularly pompous pontificator, his column having been the usual conservative blah blah about the glory of a free market economy vs the horror of a government regulated one.

And the win goes to the glory of the free market, because shortly after sending my rebuttal, I got an email back from the op/ed editor that changed my life, and especially my relationship with Andy, who, up until then, I thought was a genius.

Why did I think Andy was a genius?

1. He had an Economics degree; and
2. I read on the back of a puzzle book approved by Mensa, which I subsequently bought Andy for Christmas, that a sign of genius is having the confidence of knowing that your answer to a question is right.

Andy had genius in spades as far as the back of that puzzle book was concerned.

(For my part, I almost second guessed myself into The Opportunity Class on a Stanford test in grade three. And yet, such is irony that it never occurred to me to second guess a blurb on the back of a puzzle book.)

(Also, I still don’t understand how the theory of supply and demand could be expanded into an entire university degree.)

“How does $150 sound.”

That was what the email I got back from the op/ed editor said.

I turned to Andy, who was playing a video game on the second computer he’d managed to elbow a goodly number of fellow bureaucrats out of the way to secure for his own work needs, yet more evidence of his genius.

“I just got an email back about my column. The op/ed editor is asking how does $150 sound. So, like, do you think he means I have to pay him $150 to publish my column? Or does he mean he’ll pay me $150?”

Then I asked my question a few more times because whenever Andy was playing a video game, which he was all the time now that we had three children, he couldn’t hear me.

“What?!”

“I just got an email back about my column. The op/ed editor is asking how does $150 sound. So, like, do you think he means I have to pay him $150 to publish my column? Or does he mean he’ll pay me $150?”

“What column?!”

“My column. Remember? I sent the op/ed editor-”

“Shit! You didn’t mention me, did you?! Don’t mention me! I don’t want to be mentioned!”

“Uh, no? It was a rebuttal to that crazy column last week about the glory of the free market? Remember? I read it to you while you were playing Legend of Zelda.”

“Do you mean Ages of Empires?!”

“Yes? It was a rebut-”

“Okay! Okay! Jesus! He means pay him $150. No, he means he’ll pay you $150. Wait, let me think. I don’t know. Ask him. Ask him if you pay him or he pays you.”

“Hmmm. Okayyy. But I kind of think he probably means he’ll pay me $150.”

“Why would he pay for a letter to the editor?”

Hm, point taken. And to be fair to Andy, he told me even before the op/ed editor did that I should forget rebuttals and send columns that weren’t time sensitive, rebuttals being time sensitive because they had to be published soon after the column they were rebutting.

So I sent the op/ed editor the following email.

“When you asked ‘how does $150 sound’ (I notice you didn’t punctuate with a question mark) did you mean I pay you $150? Or you pay me $150? Just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck Katie.”

And I got back the following email that answered a surprising number of questions I didn’t realize I’d been asking myself about my relationship with Andy:

“Damn, should’ve said $200.”

So I sent back the following email:

“Double damn, should’ve said $2000.”

Ba da boom.

Ironically, after all that, my rebuttal didn’t get published – because by the time there was space for it… I still got paid $150, but (at that time) it wasn’t about the money, it was about being read, and then getting a column of my own, except in the Globe and Mail, and going on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

But it all worked out because it was the start of a secret affair with the op/ed editor of the Ottawa Citizen, so secret that even he didn’t know we were having it, and I sent lots more columns, some of which were published, some of which weren’t. And then one day my dream came true, and a bi-weekly gig was mine, a photographer sent from the Ottawa Citizen to my home to take a head shot (which required a whole roll of film to get because smiling on demand is NOT as easy as professional models, or columnist woodcuts, make it look).

I was three quarters of the way to a Pulitzer.

Alas, no sooner did the photographer get back to the office with her head shot, than the grand poohbah sold the Ottawa Citizen – to a Liberal! – and my bi-weekly gig was snatched back and given instead to a Liberal Party hack commissioned, apparently, to write love notes to the Prime Minister at the time.

I don’t know but sometimes I think that if it wasn’t for bitter recriminations about the world of paid work, I wouldn’t have any recriminations at all. I could have written love notes to the Prime Minister, ferchrissake.

Right, Leah McLaren. Well, as noted, it was a while ago but I think she said (in a column padded with quotes) something to the effect that we’ve been conditioned to buy stuff on sale instead of paying what stuff costs, and yet, stuff is only worth what we pay for it. So really, we’re fooling ourselves thinking we’re getting a deal when we buy something for less than it’s worth.

Pay less, worth less.

Anyway, notwithstanding all of the above, I can’t think of any day of the year that cheapens our society as much as a Black Friday at the mall.

Unless… perhaps… Boxing Day.

But before I get to Boxing Day, I want to go into the two week glut of shifts we sales associates enjoy after the two week lull – because who shops at Chestertons in the two weeks before Christmas?

That’s right – men! And let me tell you, dear reader, lesbians have nothing on men when it comes to one-stop shopping.

Unfortunately, the problem with men, particularly men shopping for their wives, women they’ve been married to for years and years and years, is that they don’t seem to have any idea what these women they’ve been married to for years and years and years actually look like and/or wear to cover their unremembered bodies.

Sure, men would often show up at Chestertons in the two weeks before Christmas with a specific item in mind because their wife had written down exactly what it was she wanted them to buy for her, but Anna always got those men. And that was probably for the best because whatever was on those lists had been put there back in October, and since these men were only getting around to doing their Christmas shopping in mid-December, Anna was the sales associate they needed to assure them, “That will look good on her, you should buy it.”

(When Steverino and I got together one of the first things I established between us was that 1) we were to never buy gifts for each other, and 2) we were to never celebrate holidays or each other’s birthdays. Why? Because I’d had enough, that’s why. I was tapped out. And Steverino could not be happier, let me tell you.)

I just have two man shopper stories to tell here, neither of which typify the experience, really, because, like I said, most men came with instructions that they would hand over to Anna who would sell them whatever.

There’s not much more to write about them than that.

But there was one very handsome man who would come in a couple of times during the two weeks before Christmas. Other times, too, occasionally with a couple of daughters who looked like they’d just walked out of, well, the three of them looked like a Ralph Lauren ad. But, you know, he was one of those very handsome men who was really too handsome. (Just like you can have too big a penis, gentlemen, because you can. I have a friend who had to turn a gentleman down because when she saw his penis, it was too big. Isn’t that a nice story to read in a book about ladieswear, gentlemen?)

Anyway, I tried to help him once but he was too handsome. And although he was as charming as he was handsome, I started to feel like he was flirting with me because he thought he was out of my league and so there was no danger of me mistaking his flirting for actual interest and it leading to awkwardness when I gave him my phone number and yadda yadda blah blah.

And that annoyed me because I’m vainer than I look.

So I went and got Ruth, who was his equal if not his superior in handsomeness and it turned out that was the right thing to do because that’s what everybody did, even Anna. And I’m telling this story here because it was very weird. Instead of being drawn to each other as you might think would be the case, they were like same polarity magnets repelling each other instead. I’d never seen Ruth be anything less than well-mannered with customers, and like I said, the very handsome man was always warm and friendly to the rest of us, very charming. But with Ruth, his sea blue eyes turned to shards of ice, while her sky blue eyes turned to slivers of glass, and they circle each other like a couple of very handsome wrestlers, until Ruth,  snarling through her perfect white teeth, would fling the strawberry sweater at him.

Enh, it was just for his mother.

Later, we’d all gather around, full of bravado about what we’d do next time the very handsome man came in the store, now that he was safely gone, but Ruth, who was usually to-the-minute with her shifts, would tell whichever manager was on duty that she had a headache and was going home early.

Okay, now for the other man shopper story, this one not at all like the very handsome man story, and involving yours truly as the sales associate.

“Hello, can I help you?”

“I doubt it. I’m looking for a Christmas present for my wife.”

“Well that can’t be too hard. You’re in a store full of lovely items that women buy for themselves every day.”

“I guess.”

“So maybe give me a little bit to go on. Does she wear dresses?”

<Admittedly, aiming high>

“No. She hates dresses.”

“Skirts?”

“No.”

<starting to get the giggles>

“Pants?”

“No. Well, those stretchy pants that women wear now.”

“Okay, sweaters then. Because I think you might mean yoga pants and we don’t sell those.”

“Alright.”

“So what size about do you think?”

He made a shape like a pile of lumps.

“Hm, so I’m going to suggest a large. Colours? What colours does she like? No, scratch that, what colours does she wear?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t wear colours. I don’t think she likes colours. She doesn’t like anything.”

And the cheerier I sounded the gloomier he sounded until I started to wonder if he was having me on. But he wasn’t and eventually he even bought something, a baggy beige blouse that I had to admit was a surprisingly good seller, given that it was a baggy beige blouse, but who am I to argue with other women’s taste in clothes.

(As I type this I’m wearing plaid cable knit leggings that my younger sister gave me and a striped turtleneck that may actually be a dress. I found it mixed in with the blankets at the thrift shop. Also, a navy blue housecoat, because our little row house was insulated as public housing in 1958.)

Anyway, that would have been the end of it, a husband buying his wife a baggy beige blouse for Christmas, with me left feeling more than a little concerned about her mental health, not to mention his (although he looked positively chuffed leaving Chestertons with his purchase), except that during Boxing Day week a particularly exuberant and petite hourglass shaped woman wearing at least three colours of the rainbow happened to show up on one of those rare occasions that I was stationed at the cash – to return a large baggy beige blouse.

“Hey there, good lookin’, I’d like to return this, please. Or exchange it for something a little more fun.”

“Sure, shouldn’t be hard. Either/or. So, not your style?”

<five minutes of hysterical laugher>

“Oh my god – no?  This happens every year. It’s so bad I just tell my husband now that I don’t like anything in hopes that he’ll stop trying to get me a Christmas present that I don’t have to return almost immediately. It’s so depressing to even have it in the house. I mean, look at this thing. And why is it a large? No offence, but he said he had help picking it out. Don’t you ladies even ask what size we are?”

So I pointed to Anna and rolled my eyes because earlier I’d seen her screw Ruth out of a sale when Ruth was the only one of us who never, ever, did that.

Hey, I wonder if it’s that one person out of… twenty? with personal integrity who’s screwing life up for the rest of us…

And then I abandoned the cash to one of the university girls lurking about for just such an opportunity, and went to help my newest customer pick out something better for Christmas than a baggy beige blouse at least two sizes too big.

Alas, it was Boxing Day week and there wasn’t much left to pick from so she just got her husband’s money back and went down the hall to buy herself chocolate and wine.

“My husband and I just love cuddling together on the couch watching romantic comedies, eating chocolate and drinking wine.”

“Hey next year I’ll tell him you like chocolate and wine, not clothes!”

“I thought you said-”

“I mean I’ll tell Anna. Oh look at the time. Shift’s over. Have a nice time at the movies.”

And with that she was gone. I guess. I don’t know. I was gone, anyway.

So yes, Boxing Day, the anti-Black Friday.

Well first of all, the most ridiculous thing about Boxing Day was having other sales associates ask me how my Christmas was when I’d worked with them until closing on Christmas Eve. And, once again, the store opened for 7:00 a.m. which meant that I was there at 6:10 a.m. So how good could my Christmas possibly have been?

But really, the difference between Black Friday and Boxing Day is that Boxing Day means plenty of returns, and not just sales shopping. And at Chestertons, it meant plenty of the much despised return/repurchase customers, those mighty pains in the arse returning merchandise bought at a pre-Christmas price to repurchase it at the new Boxing Day discount.

The mightiest pains in the arse might even return merchandise bought on Black Friday for repurchase on Boxing Day, thanks to Chestertons’ 90-day return policy.

Shakespeare comes to mind, mine anyway, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive”, which is ironic, because if you google that quote as I just did you’ll find that it comes to us from Sir Walter Scott.

But the real difference between Black Friday and Boxing Day?

Well, remember how uncharacteristically cheerful Gwen was on Black Friday?

Boxing Day was like the inverse of that.

Next up – the scam.