I'm no George Washington, but at least I can take that Plasma screen off your hands

As many people know, these are trying times. These are times when ordinary people are required to do extraordinary things of their own accord for the betterment of the country. Because of of who I am and how I was raised, I was prepared to do just such a thing yesterday. As many know the US is in a recession. Things are so bad that Circuit City announced this week that it would be closing all of its stores and liquidating it's inventory. As the United States government knows, there is only one way out a recession--you have to spend your way out. You have to spend like you have money even if you don't. You have to spend as though Armageddon will happen sometime next week and the day of financial reckoning will never come. Being patriotic, and knowing that there was a big-box electronics retailer in great need, I decided it was my duty to help in the the recession recovery effort by stretching our budget little further and spending a little extra during these hard times. So singing God bless America, Nicole and I climbed into the family station wagon and set off for Circuit City to the liquidation sale prepared to spend $80 for a 52" LCD TV that no one else wanted to buy; perhaps we could even go the extra mile and spend $7 on a blue-ray player as well.

Much to our surprise, we found that we were not alone; the greater Hampton Roads area is filled with many good Samaritans. However, we also found that Circuit City doesn't know what the term 'liquidation' means. 30% off office furniture and 20% off dvds is hardly a liquidation. Although they did get the "all sales final" part right, if it was to be a true liquidation, by making a purchase, I should get the same wonderful feeling inside as a looter who just backed his pickup into the store front window and is loading it up with free stuff. Instead we left empty-handed and disappointed as did just about everyone else I observed--obviouly in these dire times, management still didn't get it quite right. So although I didn't get to watch Transformers in HD this weekend I am comforted to know that even in our dismal economy that natural selection process of capitalism is still alive and well. Although we still grimace when we watch the lioness rip out the neck of that lame, old, obsolete wildabeast that is too old and arthritic to keep up with the rest, we still feel warm inside when we watch her drag the carcass back to her cute little cub named Best Buy.