Jacket Hunting

Last Friday, I did go out to take advantage of Black Friday, and one of my places to hit was Macy's because I can usually find some rather insane deals there.  In fact, it has come to where my Mom and I will call one another with "damage reports" to see who bought what, and how much money we saved off of retail.

I'm perusing the racks, and I happen to wander into the sportswear section, and I run across this nice jacket at 50% off.  One problem though, I'm at the Macy's in Marlow Heights, smack dab in the middle of Redskins territory, and I'm a Ravens fan, so no, I was not buying it that morning.

I decided to do a little online hunting to see if there were any online stores selling the jacket for that price.  There weren't any, they were all at the full price.  Now of course it became my mission to obtain said jacket in Ravens colors.  My next step was to try another store, in this case, the thought was to try the Macy's at Columbia Mall since it was between Baltimore and DC.  I ended up meeting with my buds TB and CW to hunt for the jacket and possibly do other shopping as well.  I get to the Macy's and start walking through the men's section...I can't find any team apparel anywhere, so I ask someone.  It turns out that this Macy's doesn't sell team apparel.

Say what?  With the sheer number of folks I saw walking around in team apparel at the mall, there's a market that particular Macy's is not tapping.  We tried looking through JCPenney and Sears for the same item, but they weren't carrying the jacket.  I did run across the jacket at a Foot Locker, but they wanted full price for it.  Screw that, not when I can get it for half off.

My next tactic was to start calling other Macy's (thank you VZ Navigator business search).  I tried the Glen Burnie and the PG Plaza Macy's before I started to look at some of the entries on the list.  It occurred to me that my next call should be to the Owings Mills Macy's.  (Trivia for Ravens fans: Why would I think to call the Owings Mills location?)  I make the call, and sure enough, they report they have a section of Raven's gear.  Half an hour later, I'm pulling into the town center and heading into the Macy's.  I find the jacket in the size I want, confirm it's still at the sale price, and make the payment.  The guy at the register recognized me as the slightly crazed person who had called looking for Ravens gear.  Seriously, the phone call went something like:

Him: [Intro]
Me: Do you carry sports team apparel?
Him: Yes we do
Me: Do you carry Ravens apparel?
Him: We have a big section of that.
Me: I'll be over immediately, I've been searching for this particular jacket all day but I was stuck in Redskins country!

(Yeah, I get crazy when I'm on a mission for a bargain).

So mission accomplished, I got the jacket and I love it, and at a price that no one else had it for, even if it took some work to find it.  Macy's also is not helping me right now by handing me coupons for stuff, because I can think of a few more bargains I wouldn't mind getting my hands on.