Random Thoughts On... Boxing Day

Usually, our family tends to avoid the chaos known as Boxing Day sales. The last time that we may have braved sale-hunting around Christmas Eve and Boxing Day was way back in the day when Chadstone wasn't that big and Borders hadn't made its presence known yet. And even then, parking was a gas-guzzling venture. However, I decided (or more accurately, Dad decided) to venture to Chadstone to see what sales there were on tablets like the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy 10.1. 


I've never been to Asia or any other place where population density is high. Though, I have a secret suspicion that Chadstone Shopping Centre on Boxing Day is the closest that I'll get to knowing the feeling of being so unpleasantly acquainted at close quarters with a complete stranger's rear side, and in turn, a stranger being so familiarized with my rear end. Having said that, I think it may have been more disagreeable to the person behind me since we ran to Chadstone and I had yet to steal a free spritz from the perfume counters at David Jones. Ah, first world problems. 


Dog's breakfast aside, Chadstone managed to amaze me. Its tagline is 'Fashion Capital' but I beg to differ and propose to rename it as 'Stereotype Mecca'. It was as if every typecast imaginable had come out to play. There were the cashed-up bogans, identifiable by their small Guess handbags, big sunglasses and Havaianas-clad feet, who twittered about outside Tiffany and Co. Then the hoards of fob Asians made lines of 7m or so outside Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci and Burberry. In David Jones around Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss, the uptight upper-middle class suburbia was present too. The skateboarder/punk-ish teenagers with their long side fringes under caps flocked to Vans. Even the tweens and young high schoolers were out in their groups giggling outside Valley Girl and Forever New. 


Turns out DJ wasn't having a sale on iPads and JB Hi Fi was way too crowded for us to have a proper glance at the Samsung Galaxy tablet (the Asian guy behind us showed his impatience by precariously hovering near us. His olfactory loss I suppose). So we may have been among the few to leave Chadstone without making a contribution to the economy. The magic of Boxing Day sales were lost on us but hopefully for all the others it wasn't. I mean, I would hope that they'd find something worth the parking havoc.

New Years sales anyone?