bfads.net, too.....usually "the standard," if there is such a thing, but some ads never made it out, and some retailers brought down the legal hammer.
Here's my experience..........so far.....
Being up that early and driving places I don't normally drive gave me the opportunity to hear morning shows I rarely hear and all shows in places and ways I normally don't...always interesting.
While almost all shows were being audibly "conscious" of what was going on, some showed no empathy, at all. One, a male/female pair, had the male lead dominating the conversation with his "I would never...I can't believe..." blah blah blah; while I might "identify with" him most years, I found him coming across as a rectum. There's a big difference between "It's not what I usually personally do, but I'll help however I can as you do it" and "I would never...I can't believe...!"
Four other shows caught my ear -- two for good reasons, two for bad.
The two good ones -- both were live at some place, and both were interacting with the folks around. Typical, usual, easy stuff, but fairly (I hate this word) compelling. "Vicarious" is how I would describe my experience hearing it.
The two bad ones.....
One was a syndicated morning show, and one of the talents offered a time check over a rejoiner. I didn't know they were set up like that and was surprised and impressed.....right up until I realized the time check was
68 minutes off. Bad automated time aside, although not identified as a "best of," it was clearly in the can and had nothing current and topical, whatsoever.
The other disappointment came from a live-and-local show. Even though live and with all its usual "cast" present, the frequency of the basics had apparently gone by the wayside. The worst offense -- the "news" featured stories about the number travelling over Thanksgiving and The President "pardoning" the two turkeys. Uh, hey, folks....those stories were news on
Tuesday, not
Friday!
Concerning the shopping,.....
I haven't yet gone near a mall. I will in about an hour.
All of the items I was wanting were
not available online at these prices.
At one retailer (the one that was the subject of my question and the first I would need to go to), the two items I wanted were 40% and 75% off the website prices, and I considered those worth going after. Unfortunately, being delayed after making a wrong turn that led me right to the scene of a fire (not in the traffic reports on the air!), I didn't make it in time to get those items. Based on the routing I needed to take to get to all the retailers I wanted to go to within the amount of time I guessed all the items would remain in stock, I had chosen the "store in the not-as-well-off part of town" strategy, and it worked....even though I didn't make it in time. Being a "slower" store, the staff had the time to work with me and placed an order for those items at the sale prices, an order that would be shipped directly to me for free. (
After years of avoiding them, I guess I have to start liking them again.)
The manager, who had been nearby, told me that
all stores (in this region, at least), regardless of traffic, received an "approximately" equal number of those items; he was proud that he had built the store in that "slow" location up to where it was considered pretty much equal with the others (and strangely vocal about it!). He also told me that the company's "Black Friday" policy is to not answer the phone until after the doorbuster hours....customers can't take the associates' time looking for the items or asking for them to be reserved (which they can't), and neither can the company's other stores!
The strategy of the women in Nunley's life probably would have been the best, but what I wound up doing worked out, too.
The next stop, for an item at 50% off (best usual sale price is a third off) that I thought would be in low demand, was a large discount store. Arriving two full hours after their sale started, I had no problem...even got the best parking space a non-handicapped person can get. As I was entering, a family, apparently having already completed its third or fourth stop, was exiting; one of them, with a voice filed with happiness and accomplishment, said, "well, we did it!" That sorta confirmed my thought that the "I would never...I can't believe..." guy
had come on too strong with that.
The third stop was a specialty retailer; combining a sale discount and a doorbuster discount, I paid only 40% what I would have paid for a comparable item elsewhere.....again, I thought that definitely worth the trip.
Four more places to go yet today for things about which I'm thinking the retailers should have ample supply....more leisurely shopping with planned discounts in the 50-65% range and, thus, worthwhile to me.
I'm a frugal son-of-a-gun and, despite being a male, an
excellent shopper!
I'm an excellent shopper....yeaaaah...an excellent shopper....Wapner's on at 4......
)
