The Bargain

Today I ventured to Borders because I kept seeing emails about how everything is practically free. The irony is that it has always been a good deal to go there, since they send out 33% to 40% off coupons and give members the extra %10 almost every day. Now that they are "Going Out of Business," I wondered all morning if I was missing out on something great, so at 2 pm I drove downtown with the kids to find out.

I started in the Children's section, optimistic that the toys, books and games would provide a weeks worth of fun. We picked up a bionical robot and a sticker book cluing my three year old into the fact that I was ready to buy. He then began saying things like, "look at this Spiderman Puzzle" and Do you think we can get Little MR Grumble?" As he clutched the items, my answer was, "Sure" and his eyes lit up.

We moved to the magazines, all left-overs with piles of calendars, and romance novels filling the Politics, Art and Lit Review sections. Then we headed upstairs to discover walls of cookbooks, like the many I have bought and never look at again along with bath kits and shopping bags and walls of greeting cards. I moved from Fiction to Biography to DVD's hoping for anything I could justify adding to my pile for the "Buy 8, get an extra 15% off." Andrew said get kids movies and maybe "The Social Network," but the prices started at $29.99 and went up from there. I stood calculating what 30% off would add up to, it was hardly a bargain, especially given there were none I wanted to see.

So you might assume that I walked out in a huff, but no, I was intent on buying eight items. Do I need Little Miss Curious or Burst bees tinted chapstick or a Transformer sticker books? No, but somehow I felt compelled to cheat the system and make a killing in savings. I just wanted to buy things and I honestly believed that when they rang me up, the check-out man would say, "Your total is five dollars and you saved $75," or something like that. In the end I spent $35 and saved $30. The problem is that now I have all this stuff and am out $35. The moment I set foot on the sidewalk and for the rest of the afternoon I lamented that there are no returns and that now I am stuck with more stuff.

I am not sure the lesson. I want to say I shouldn't have bought the things, or that they will come in handy when I need to give someone a gift. I could even say I was the martyr in this debacle, allowing me to spread the message to you and your friends to avoid the place, but really I think I need to just say, what is done is done. I made a mistake. That despite the unknown authors who lined the shelves looking to be made legitimate through a sale, that David, Isaac and I got out of the house for a few hours. That now I don't need to wonder what I am missing. That next time I have can opt for the park instead.