Jaded and disillusioned

Jaded and disillusioned
I feel like a little kid that’s found out DisneyWorld didn’t live up to the hype. For the past two weeks you haven’t been able to turn on a television in Sydney without hearing a manic guy screaming about the “MASSIVE LIQUIDATION SALE” going on at Fox Studios. “REPOSSESSED AND SEIZED GOODS! NAME BRANDS FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST! ADIDAS! VICTORIA’S SECRET! STAR WARS! LEVIS – $20! HARRY POTTER – 10 CENTS! MILLIONS OF BRAS! CDS AND DVDS! AHHHH!” Through sheer force of repetition I found it sinking into my brain. I started to get excited at the thought of all those bargains. “I could really use some new jeans,” I thought. “Ooh, and the Snook’s been after some new T-shirts.” I talked myself into it. So tonight I finally caved and headed out there with the Barkers. What a load of crap it turned out to be. It made the Shipshe Flea Market look like Bloomingdale’s. It was a big warehouse staffed by indifferent backpackers and dodgy looking types with walkie-talkies. We didn’t find any Star Wars stuff, nor any Levis. The “massive” discounts all seemed to have been taken off massively inflated recommended retail prices. I found myself grabbing things because they were “on sale,” only to realize that I wouldn’t buy them from Kmart for the same price. I ended up getting a a comforter (which the Aussies called a “quilt”), a quilt cover, a Harry Potter magnet, two crap CDs (Acker Bilk’s Reflections and The Very Best of the Allman Brothers, which I got because it will forever remind me of my roommater Eileen), and a packet of socks. SOCKS. I am officially old. I left feeling a little bit wiser and a lot more jaded. If you can’t believe in warehouse sales of Star Wars merchandise, what can you believe in?