I stood in line with about 200 other people at 5am on Thanksgiving morning in 2006 for a steal of a deal. If you're going to stand in line that early in the morning on a holiday, whatever it is you're after better be good. In this case it was a silver 2GB ipod nano. And I wanted one really bad. Of course I could have just gone to the store during normal business hours and purchased one at full price, but who does that? The advertised price was 150 dollars. If you know me, you know I either didn't pay that much or got more than just an ipod for that amount. In this case, the ipod came with a 50 dollar gift card to the store from which I was buying it. I read an article about a celebrity who was quoted as saying she never bought anything on sale. It made me feel sorry for her. Such a terrible way to have to go through life, always paying full price. A crying shame.
I'll admit at the time it was a novelty purchase. I was more excited about getting more for my money than I was about the ipod. It's not about what I'm buying necessarily, but about what kind of deal I am getting. It's why I have more than one label maker. Hey, when it's free . . . During the summer of 2007 I started running and my novelty purchase became my closest friend. We had 3 1/2 good years together. After dropping it one or ten times, it developed a kind of twitch that just couldn't be ignored and eventually I had to call its time of death in June 2010. Since then I've relied on Jon's old Sansa Disk player that is neither as cute or as easy to navigate as my old ipod.
Jon will attest that one of my biggest faults is if I don't have something, I (and my family) will do without until an absolute need arises. That includes things like furniture, cars, my wedding ring, TV's, etc. We have a TV because my mom and dad came to visit last February and it became quite clear my father was more than mildly disappointed he wasn't going to be able to watch the Olympics. Fine, we'll buy a TV. I'll replace the lost diamond in my wedding ring when four more people hit on me. Or when that rest stop in Peru, Illinois finally calls me back and tells me they found it in the drain pipe of the third sink over from the door. I know it's in there somewhere. See, it's all about priorities.
This morning I was looking on Craigslist monitoring the two things I've determined we can't live without. An ipod - preferably a new(ish) 5th generation, and a piano. Nathan's earned the right to move on from the free starter piano and I've decided the ipod was a necessity when I got tired of putting the Sansa in my bra when I ran. It got all sweaty and made my boob look lumpy. See, priorities. So this morning when I saw someone was trying to offload the ipod I wanted, for a price I was willing to pay, I did what anyone else would have done - made a Starbuck's date with a perfect stranger. He turned out to be a teenager who had purchased the hot pink ipod for a girl he liked. But alas, it didn't work out between them and he was getting rid of the memories. Poor kid. After determining it was everything he said it was (plus 14 of his favorite rap songs) I paid the boy and came home, happy with my purchase and looking forward to being able to run again - when I'm not rockin' a killer cough.
The Craigslist page was still open when I returned home. Before I exited, I reloaded the search. There, at the top of the list, was a purple ipod exactly like the one I had just purchased 20 minutes earlier, but for 40 dollars cheaper. I'm currently making a list of reasons why I should be happy with my new ipod. I'll start with the fact that its color perfectly matches the stripes on my new running shoes. Jon suggested the purple one was probably stolen. He always knows exactly what to say to make me feel better. Please, feel free to add to the list.
