The Early Bird Gets ...The Discount!

    It is 5:30 AM on a Saturday morning in Damariscotta, it is a few degrees below freezing and the streets are full of crazy people with shopping bags. What is wrong with these folks?  I have to admit that at 5:30 this morning I opened one eye, glanced at the clock, rolled over and went back to sleep so my information is second hand and these pictures weren't taken until after 9 when the crowd had thinned out. But from what I hear there was hardly a parking spot to be found and people were lined up and waiting to get into stores in Damariscotta and Newcastle.

   I'm sorry, but you couldn't discount a new couch or television set enough for me to get into town at 5:30 in the morning. It's November people, it's dark and it's cold at that hour.

   OK it is a festive atmosphere, there are discounts of 50% or more in some stores, you're friends and neighbors are fund raising for the Damariscotta River Association or the Damariscotta-Newcastle Rotary Club or a local charity, your favorite candidate for Maine House or Senate is handing out hot coffee and scones, but is this really necessary? Isn't 5:30 a little uncivilized? Couldn't we do this at another time?   

   I'm proposing we do this at 9 PM on a Saturday night. Then, instead of coffee and donuts it could be Irish Coffee and...whatever goes with Irish Coffee. Or a Sheepscot Ale and whatever you want because everything goes with a Sheepscot Ale.

   If we can make this happen I will personally talk to the powers that be here at Newcastle Square Realty and see if we can't offer discounts on our inventory! How about 10% off on all waterfront property! 20% for intown. Buy 3 acres we throw in another acre. I don't know why nobody else ever thought of this. Who do I talk to?

Tom Field

Comments

[Jim Cosgrove]

Tom,
What you are referring to, for our readers unfamliar with our local customs, is of course our annual Early Bird Sale here in the Twin Villages. Once a year stores open at an ungodly early hour and offer discounts that typically go down as the morning goes on. For example an item might be marked down 30% from 5:30 to 6:30, then 20% from 6:30 to 7:30 and then 10% for the rest of the morning. At one time some stores offered an extra 10% discount if you showed up in your pajamas.
Since this event always draws quite a crowd a lot of other folks show up, too. As you mention, the politicians are out in force if it's an election year.
A couple years back, the candidates from one party decided it would be clever to bring along the animal that is their partys' symbol, the jackass. Well that animal did what animals do, all up and down the street. And of course, shoppers stepped in it and tracked it into stores all up and down the street. Many a store owner was heard to mutter, as they cleaned the mess off their floor, that they were glad the other party hadn't brought their much larger animal!