PSoTD

Retailers and the American consumer have banded together to make today an embarrassing stop on the calendar. I will do what I can to teach our kids that getting up early on the day after Thanksgiving to go Christmas shopping for deals is not a "tradition" that is worthy of them.

Just another large electronics/stereo chain going out of business.

So, the power's off for the third hour of the eleven hours it will be off on Saturday, and I decide to take the kids to Circuit City. Not to buy, I tell them, just to look. I received a gift card last year for Circuit City for Christmas from my mother-in-law, which was great but I haven't used it. Some news show the other day was briefly covering the financial problems that Circuit City are suffering now, and the words "if you have a gift card at Circuit City, run, don't walk, to use it" from an analyst are still echoing in my head.

We enter the door and it's pretty clear that customers are outnumbered by the red shirted employees. Not only that, but it appears that Circuit City is trying to save money by primarily hiring oily-faced 16 year old boys. They are everywhere. Their training seems to consist of remembering the first directive: Ask if the customer needs help. It doesn't matter if the customer intentionally is avoiding eye contact, or walking away, or talking to his kids. No, check if they need help with something.

Lost in the checking is the caveat - ask once. Since we were "looking" we ended up wandering the entire store in about 20 minutes, which was about all of the red shirts I could take. It's bad enough that every red shirt is going to ask at least once. But during that time, I was asked by one particular clerk 4 times, in different places, whether I needed any help. I don't think this kid was trying to pester us, I just don't think he was taking the time to remember who he asked, and apparently I am nondescript. Perhaps I should have worn my Jason hockey mask. I bet he would have remembered me then.

I understand that Circuit City is having hard times, but the heavy handed approach they're using with their teen brigades is pretty uncomfortable and doesn't feel like a recipe for recovery. I did get some ideas of what to spend the gift card on - but I don't feel like rewarding Circuit City with unspent money. Spend the card and get out will be my focus. They should try to avoid that sentiment with a sales approach that is more comfortable to the customer.

I am in the midst of planning our family's vacation for 2009. Every odd year, my two brothers' and their families and our family get together for a big family vacation somewhere. It's a lot of fun, and we go to different places, but because we're scattered all over the country, it's rarely anything "local" for anyone. We like to rent a big house for a week so we can be together, and then do what we're going to do for the week.

It's a strange time in vacation rentals, I suspect. When I look at the web sites for larger house rentals, I see a lot of vacancy still at this point, which in the past I don't remember seeing as much. This makes sense as people are planning less "big" vacations until the economy's path becomes more clear. On the other hand, I don't see the prices for these rentals being lowered to reflect the change in market conditions. I suspect that's a "when" action as oppose to an "if" action on the part of the rental landlords.

I'm going to have to use up this gift card sometime this week, I think.

So what will they say to this news?

Ha ha ha, not so funny.

Try using the FinAid Calculator for College Costs and use their average one year public school cost of $17336, and figure out the difference between the costs of matriculating in four years, and the costs of matriculating in 14 years. For those of us with second graders, it's pretty depressing.