Saturday, November 25, 2006
There is no 'more responsible' shopper than this blog's author...! True!
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There can be no doubt about that - Jack!
I have learned through trial and error at first, I will admit here and now - but I quickly polished my smart consumer skills to such a degree, that there was no turning back! ;)
I simply find it to be my nigh-sacrosanct duty now to share with the L.O.V.s all that I've learned, observed, watched from afar with casual interest, scrutinized when I needed to (make a purchase myself!) and simply noticed whenever it so happened...! It should come in handy now, as we are officially a month away from Christmas!
Aye, it is hard to decipher where the better deal lies, oftentimes... It is equally difficult to truly get quality for a good price nowadays - not that anyone can pretend to be assured of the quality of what they buy if they fork over the top price that is demanded by those unscrupulous hypocritical retailers who only pretend that they love you! They love your dough - moolah - money - cash flow... That they surely do! But trust me - they don't particularly care about YOU!
Now, shopping on BIDZ or E-BAY is another thing altogether... It is much akin to file-sharing over the net - one can get goodies but one risks also getting a whole load of crap and some unspeakable, unnameable parasites along with that too...! Perhaps the whole entreprise is not adviseable, because of that... Besides, are we in the computer age or not? Don't feed the snail mail carriers! They carry germs too! Why do you think Fido, Rex and the rest of the puppy love gang hate them so much - eh? ;)
Thus, it is back to square one - back to the abode of them ghoulish, creepy retailers I mentioned a moment ago - back to THE MALL! And what do you want to do, when you go to that most unholy place of all that they call "the mall" - hmm? You want to avoid all of the following categories of (so-called) people/deals:
1. mallrats - of course!
2. purse snatchers
3. pick-pocket artists
4. parking lot scam artists
5. bus stop scam artists
6. sneering, haughty fellow shoppers
7. too-good-to-be-true 75% off sales...
8. "street sales" - especially if items on sale are unwrapped food...!
9. dubious "2 for 1" deals...
10. and, of course, all manners, shapes and forms of retailers-critters...!
With all that "baggage" now, I am certain that you are all fully equipped to go out on your own and dare to venture "out there"... Or, as the case may well be, you will not dare to do so at all...! Ordering by catalog and sending out "gift-certificates" is NOT advised either, alas... You can get royally screwed ordering (usually) faulty equipment through a catalog (especially if it is electronics...) and a recent poll pointed out that a significant percentage of gift recipients were dumb enough never to cash in their gift-certificates! These things need to be redeemed, otherwise it is like throwing away hard-earned cash...!
I don't know about thee, but that's a definite no-no where I am concerned...
My final bit of advice is to just forego the whole damned process and send any amount of cash destined to be wasted on gift purchases to a meticulously chosen charity organization (one that actually does relay the monetary gifts to those who are needy and in difficulty...?)
That's just the... Luminous thing to do! :)
Yeah - some shopping malls are that remote too...
Link
There can be no doubt about that - Jack!
I have learned through trial and error at first, I will admit here and now - but I quickly polished my smart consumer skills to such a degree, that there was no turning back! ;)
I simply find it to be my nigh-sacrosanct duty now to share with the L.O.V.s all that I've learned, observed, watched from afar with casual interest, scrutinized when I needed to (make a purchase myself!) and simply noticed whenever it so happened...! It should come in handy now, as we are officially a month away from Christmas!
Aye, it is hard to decipher where the better deal lies, oftentimes... It is equally difficult to truly get quality for a good price nowadays - not that anyone can pretend to be assured of the quality of what they buy if they fork over the top price that is demanded by those unscrupulous hypocritical retailers who only pretend that they love you! They love your dough - moolah - money - cash flow... That they surely do! But trust me - they don't particularly care about YOU!
Now, shopping on BIDZ or E-BAY is another thing altogether... It is much akin to file-sharing over the net - one can get goodies but one risks also getting a whole load of crap and some unspeakable, unnameable parasites along with that too...! Perhaps the whole entreprise is not adviseable, because of that... Besides, are we in the computer age or not? Don't feed the snail mail carriers! They carry germs too! Why do you think Fido, Rex and the rest of the puppy love gang hate them so much - eh? ;)
Thus, it is back to square one - back to the abode of them ghoulish, creepy retailers I mentioned a moment ago - back to THE MALL! And what do you want to do, when you go to that most unholy place of all that they call "the mall" - hmm? You want to avoid all of the following categories of (so-called) people/deals:
1. mallrats - of course!
2. purse snatchers
3. pick-pocket artists
4. parking lot scam artists
5. bus stop scam artists
6. sneering, haughty fellow shoppers
7. too-good-to-be-true 75% off sales...
8. "street sales" - especially if items on sale are unwrapped food...!
9. dubious "2 for 1" deals...
10. and, of course, all manners, shapes and forms of retailers-critters...!
With all that "baggage" now, I am certain that you are all fully equipped to go out on your own and dare to venture "out there"... Or, as the case may well be, you will not dare to do so at all...! Ordering by catalog and sending out "gift-certificates" is NOT advised either, alas... You can get royally screwed ordering (usually) faulty equipment through a catalog (especially if it is electronics...) and a recent poll pointed out that a significant percentage of gift recipients were dumb enough never to cash in their gift-certificates! These things need to be redeemed, otherwise it is like throwing away hard-earned cash...!
I don't know about thee, but that's a definite no-no where I am concerned...
My final bit of advice is to just forego the whole damned process and send any amount of cash destined to be wasted on gift purchases to a meticulously chosen charity organization (one that actually does relay the monetary gifts to those who are needy and in difficulty...?)
That's just the... Luminous thing to do! :)
Link
