Juvenall Wilson

Today, I, Juvenall Wilson, sold my soul to my new corporate overlords in exchange for saving a few bucks off a new computer for Michelle. Thankfully, it wasn’t actually my money that was spent so I’ve got nothing “eternal” to fear.

A few years back, Michelle and I picked up two eMachines from Circuit City as part of their Black Friday sales. At the time, they were kick ass boxes and it was hard to argue with picking them up for something like $250 (normally like $600). These things served us quite well over the years. In fact, some time last year, mine became the web server that was hosting this very site after I got my new Sony Vaio Media Center. Her’s though, kept right on rolling. However, since she’s recently been getting into more advanced computer uses (such as her comic work), it was about time for a change.

So bright and early, we got up and hit Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast. I haven’t actually eaten in one of those places in years so it was sort of a trip to sit back and watch everyone else freak out about how long it’s taking to get back to..whatever. Once we finished up, it was off to the American Mecca, or Wal-Mart for you “normies”. There we looked at a few of the systems they had, but nothing was looking like a good deal. Besides, from where we stood, they were all normal prices anyhow. So why bother getting it there, right? So we fought through the crowd in Electronics (really the only place anyone was shopping in the store) and headed off to Best Buy. That’s when the scope of Black Friday really hit us. It was something like 9am by the time we got there and the line for the register was literally wrapped around the store. Ignoring that, we headed for the computers anyhow to see if there was a good deal still left to be found. Guess what? Zippo. Everything worth spending money on was still regular price. So again, there was no use fighting the lines to buy something we could get for the same price tomorrow.

At that point, Michelle was dead ass tired and just wanted to go home. I, however, wanted to try one more place: CompUSA. They’ve always had a better selection of computers than other stores anyhow. The downside, it was something like 20 minutes away. So clearly she wasn’t happy. When we got there, we were shocked by how empty the store was. It almost felt as if it was just another normal day there, which was just fine for us. After looking around at the computers for a while, we finally decided on a well equipped Compaq. This is where things just got stupid.

First, we had to wait around for someone to finish up talking this old guy into buying a computer. Not that I didn’t understand; he was there first. 20 minutes later, he finally got with us and handed us the box we wanted. It was off to the register. Now, the system runs for about $700, but after the instant rebates, discounts and AOL sign up, it was $250 (Yes, AOL. Not that I wanted the service but they were taking $250 off the price for a 12 month contract at $14.95 a month. I actually save $70 that way.) At the register, we’re then told our sales guy screwed up and didn’t give us the AOL paperwork we needed for the discount. He pointed us over to a different desk saying “that guy can help you”. Turns out, “that guy” was the store manager (as noted by him being the only one in a dress shirt and tie) and he tells us that our sales guy, now AWOL, is the only one who can sign us up. So another 20 minutes is spent trying to find the guy and once we do, it’s a race around the store to find a computer that’s not in use. This leads us to the back room where, because of major network issues, it takes another 40 minutes to fill out the online forms. Then it was back to the register only to be told that the forms didn’t print out the bar code they needed for the discount. Ugh. Now we have to wait for the store manager to approve the discount. Add on another 10 minutes. Now, here’s the kicker. When the box was finally scanned, it rang up more than $200 over what we were expecting. Turns out, we were given the wrong fucking box. We got the slightly upgraded version. Not willing to dick around again, we said screw it, took the thing and got the hell out of the store.

Now we’re home, tired and ready for a very long nap.