Dealings of the Horde

Thanksgiving for most desis in the US is concerned with getting good bargains while shopping. Most desis I know couldn't care less about the whole turkey eating event. Shopping remains the main priority during this time of the year.

During Thanksgiving 06' Abhinay woke up Dhake and myself to get to the STAPLES outlet nearby. So the three of us along with Devdutt made our way to the store in the wee hours. It was my first experience of shopping deals,rebates and what the big deal about the whole thing was. The previous night Abhinay had a whole sorted list of all the items which he was looking for (External HDD's,webcams etc.) I opted to just get myself an internal 200GB HDD.( I didn't want to risk a considerable amount on the whole rebates thingy as I frankly had no clue how the whole thing worked.) I had also already bought myself a external HDD enclosure online for 5$ (mind you, I had just got myself an enclosure and not the actual HDD yet).


Rama was the first one in the line when we reached STAPLES. I figured he was out for some serious shopping. Standing in line outside the store during thanksgiving is a nice experience. You end up cursing the weather a lot as well as STAPLES for not opening the store soon enough. Soon the store doors opened and the horde rushed in as if they were some conquering barbarians out to pillage and loot the golden town. One glimpse of the internal HDD was enough for me to pounce for it as if it was the elixir for immortality.

Abhinay and the others were also looking for their own share of bargains. Rama managed to achieve all his objectives by getting all the items he had on his list, as well as several other items which he could probably barter later for something he may have missed out. It was like going back to the Medieval Ages and STAPLES resembled a regular bazaar with hawkers, their wares and the customers haggling over bargains.

Once we were done with our dealings however it was time to shell out the cash and hope for the rebate checks to come back. We went back quite satisfied though and after reaching home fiddled a bit with our respective deals and then promptly went back to sleep.

It did take quite sometime but I managed to get all my rebate checks and so my overall purchase came to 25$ for a 200GB external HDD.