You are standing in the parking lot at 5 a.m., breath fogging, clutching a folded flyer, and I want you to know something: you look wonderful. Ridiculous, in that big coat. But wonderful.
You think you need the television. The seventy-inch one, the doorbuster, the one worth setting an alarm for. You will get it. It will hang on the wall for eleven years and then a better one will replace it and you will not remember this morning at all.
But you are here with your sister.
That is the part. She is beside you in her ugly green scarf, holding two coffees she cannot really afford, complaining about the cold, laughing at the woman running for the cart corral. You are annoyed she talked you into this. You are cold. You want to go home.
Go slower. The doors won't open for twenty minutes.
I have looked for this morning many times. Not the sale. The sale is nothing, a number crossed out and a smaller number under it, the oldest trick there is. I mean the two of you in a dark parking lot, arguing about whether the deal is even good, both of you knowing it doesn't matter, both of you just glad to be freezing next to someone.
Drink the coffee while it's hot. Let her win the argument. And when the doors open and everyone surges, don't rush ahead. Reach back and take her hand in the crowd, the way you did when you were small.
You keep the receipt. You throw away the box.
I would give the television back for one more of these cold, stupid, perfect mornings. You still have this one.
Stay in it a little longer.