Sale Sale Sale

Do you read the sales flyers?

Today is Sunday. That means a thick newspaper. But much of the bulk in Sunday’s Arizona Republic comes from sale flyers. One inch worth. I measured. That’s 2.54 centimetres for those of you more familiar with the metric system.

My husband and I are past the mid way point of our third month as snowbirds, wintering in Mesa, Arizona. At the beginning of our stay, I felt compelled to read, or at least skim through, all the flyers, whether I was looking for anything or not. There might have been a bargain I couldn’t resist.

I have lived all my life in Canada within close proximity to the U.S. border. I understand the lure of American bargains. Cross-border shopping is an integral part of the lives of many Canadians, especially when the Canadian dollar is close to par with the U.S. dollar. On those rare occasions when it creeps higher than the U.S. dollar we smirk and gloat ever so slightly.

We’ve grown up learning about which goods cost less in the U.S. I don’t think the deals are as great as I remember from younger days, but there are still many things cheaper here than in Canada. Some of the bargains don’t make any sense. This week I bought a piece of Canadian Brie cheese for about 60% of what I would have paid back in Canada. How can this be?

Even within our own country, there is something magnetic about flyers and sales. Did your heart race a little when you read the title of this post? What is it that drives us to buy more and more stuff? To look through sales flyers when we don’t need anything? Of course, we may not realize we need it until we see it in the flyer.

Today I will ignore the flyers. I will concentrate on my favourite part of the Sunday paper, the New York Times crossword puzzle. Our home newspaper the Winnipeg Free Press no longer publishes a Sunday paper. The New York Times Sunday crossword is now printed in the Saturday paper. I save it for Sunday. In travels to and from other cities, I’ve discovered that the puzzle appeared the previous Sunday in other newspapers.

As I said I will not read the flyers today. Mostly not. Maybe.