half-priced holidays

My friend Randy has been dating a girl for the past three years. He’s broken up with her a few times in the past to ‘test the waters’ when a more attractive fish has swum by, but he always returns to the same old pond when those more attractive fish don’t take his bait.

He stopped by the other night, fresh from his last minute Christmas shopping spree at the local mall, and started pulling out the gifts that he planned on giving his girlfriend.

“Check this out,” he said, “I got her this little bracelet…what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “It’s sure got a lot of little hearts on it. Is it gold?”

“Close enough…it’s gold plated. The best thing is that it only cost me $75! Ordinarily it’s $150, but I got it at half price! I also got her this watch. Pretty nice, huh? It’s even got a few glass diamonds in it. See?”

“Glass diamonds?” I asked. “Which are they, glass or diamonds?”

“I’m not real sure, but they’re shiny and the watch only cost me $50. It was on sale. Retail price of this thing is $199!”

“So for Christmas, you spent a total of $125 on the girl you’ve been dating for three years. And what is she getting you?.”

“Well, I know that she’s buying me an X-Box 360, and probably some sweaters and clothes. Oh, and one of those GPS devices. But she won’t actually know that I got these things on sale. Normally, they would have cost more. Besides, she’s going to love these compared with what I got her last year.”

“And what was that?”

“A coffee maker and a blender.”

“You know,” I said, “you’re going to have to kick it up a notch in the gift department because, you realize, that you’re going to end up marrying this girl.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yes, necessarily. She’s invested three years in you. She’s not going to let you get away at this point.”

“Invested? You make it sound like she’s playing the stock market.”

“Yeah, well I just hope that she realizes that she’s not getting a Microsoft or Coca-Cola. You’re more like an Enron.”

“Enron or not,” he told me, “I just saved over $150! That’s a whole lot of beer, my friend, with a video game for my new X-Box thrown in!”

And really, what says Merry Christmas more than presents at discount prices?