Obsessed

The first couple of weeks after the season finale of Lost, I was depressed. Wednesday evening would come and go and I would have to fold the laundry, but there was no Lost on to watch. The first week, I re-watched the season finale. I don't remember what piddle I watched the second week. Thursday's lunch times had also turned into Lost time for me. I would spend time reading a couple of awesome columns about Lost. So, now I didn't have that to look forward to either.

Then, I fixated on how to get a copy of Lost Season 1 on DVD without spending much money. Everywhere I looked, copies were expensive. They were not selling them at Costco here or Sam's Club in GF where my mom checked for me.

Then, I got an email from B&N advertising "Buy 2 DVDs, Get One Free." I just had to find two other people who wanted to buy something comparable in price to Lost. There were no takers in my family, but I persuaded my mom and my Lostie friends here to go for it. I needed three copies of season 1. My local store didn't have three copies in stock. I special ordered them, but when I called for an update on when they would be coming, the guy said July 7. JULY 7??? Are you freaking kidding me? That was a month away. Forget that.

So then I called all the stores in the area to see if anyone had three copies. No one did. Some had two copies. Finally, one very helpful and resourceful young man told me that I could come to a store and buy two copies, and then have the third copy shipped elsewhere and would qualify for the special deal. So last Wednesday night, I dragged the kids to a store about 15 miles away to get two copies of Lost Season 1 and to have the third copy shipped to my mom.

Want to know a dirty little secret about B&N? At least in this instance, they jacked up their store prices compared to their online prices. The supposed reason is that they have higher overhead costs in their bricks and mortar store compared to a warehouse. I also think that they're making you pay a premium to get your hands on something the moment you want it rather than waiting the few days for it to come in the mail. And it's also easy to look at amazon.com and see that their prices are lower and to just order from them.

So the kicker is that with the free shipping for my mom, it cost me more to drive up the freeway to a B&N and buy the DVDs there than to just sit waiting comfortably in the privacy of my own home and have them delivered to my door step. Oh well. We got to watch the Lost pilot that night. Awesome.

My other financial resourcefulness? I took back the nice hardback Friedman book I got AJ for father's day last year (because he had read "enough" of the library copy and wasn't interested in reading any more. It hadn't been cracked open, and happily, I didn't inscribe it), and got $22 in store credit at B&N. My total out of pocket costs for Lost Season 1, then? $15. Yee-haw! That's coming on vacation with me.

Hmm. What do I have laying around the house that I can trade in for Season 2??