Towering Over Thanksgiving

My daughter and I just got back from Tower Records (while my wife stayed home to review home school materials). I was so stunned by the posted holiday hours, I just had to ask at the counter about them. My local Tower Records will be open 10 to 10 on Thanksgiving. Oh, did I mention Tower has Christmas hours, too?

I pretty much had accepted McDonalds’ half-day Thanksgiving hours, but 10 to 10 over at Tower Records? Geez. Get a life! I’m tempted to drop in and see just how is business, considering not only the holiday but day before Black Friday. 

The local Best Buy, about a mile up Rockville Pike from the Tower Records, will be closed Thanksgiving but open at 5 a.m. the following day. What nutcase gets up before sunrise to go shopping? My local Target also will close for Turkey Day and open an hour later than the Best Buy on Black Friday.

In some respects, Tower’s Thanksgiving hours make some sense, if I rightly understand the target audience. Other than myself, I didn’t see any shoppers there older than 30 (I’m lying! No one over 25!). Manga books and sex manuals shared bookshelf space, which is revealing. I love Tower, and for good reason. My Sunday iTunes playlist includes bands like Arcade Fire, Bowling for Soup, Gorillaz, Jack’s Mannequin, Liz Phair, and Sum 41. So, I’m younger in spirit or (gasp) maturity. More likely the latter.

If I really were 20, hell, I’d want to hang out at Tower rather than watch the old fart relatives sleeping in front of the TV. There is appropriate commentary warranted about family breakdown and younger Americans’ reliance on friends more than relatives. But that’s a topic for some other time.

Photo Credit: Carl Raether