December 24, 2003 - Last Minute Shopping and the DMV

We often hear of people who finish their Christmas shopping in Nov.  Probably Martha Stewart does.  These people have all their presents selected, bought, wrapped, packaged, and shipped long before most of us make our first trip down to the mall to wonder what size shirt Uncle Clem wears.  Supposedly, these “type-A-ers” are ahead of the game by beating the crowd.  They can park easily, get plenty of help, and don’t have to wait hours in line to make purchases, send parcels, or buy groceries.

Yesterday, the dedicated staff of edhat.com jumped feet first onto the busy sidewalks of last minute Christmas shopping. We wanted to see the price of penance for being gift challenged two shopping days before the big day.  Our measure of pain was the amount of time we would spend in line waiting to perform normal shopping tasks:  parking, shopping, mailing, marketing. For a reality check we threw the DMV, the mother of all waits, into the mix.

Read ‘em and weep Martha!  It took us 2 minutes to park at the Paseo Nuevo Mall, 1 minute to get waited-on in Macy’s housewares department, and less than 1 minute to get served at the main post office on Anacapa Street.  Gelson’s supermarket, overrun with labor union supporters, only kept us for 2 minutes in line.  The Gelson’s wait time is a little deceiving because the parking lot there looked like grunion night at the beach.  It took us 8 minutes and a potentially ugly I-signaled-first-so-it’s-my-space dispute to find a spot in the undersized lot.

That left the DMV. Compared to the DMV, last minute Christmas shopping is like a full spa treatment at the Bacara Resort.  When the dedicated staff walked into the DMV on Castillo, it looked like the Denver Airport on Thanksgiving weekend … on steroids!  Yesterday, it would have taken us 2 1/2 hours of waiting to find out that we had filled out the wrong form.  We know we said that we would wait with you yesterday, but 2 ½ hours at the DMV? We aren’t that dedicated. An edhat tip … the online reservation service at http://www.dmv.ca.gov works very well and is highly recommended for all.

In yesterday’s contest, BeanieBoy correctly picked the DMV as the longest wait, and his total wait time of 132 minutes, the highest number of all contestants, was closest to the actual total of 156 minutes.  BeanieBoy wins a Peet’s coffee card and a genuine first edition edhat hat (that’s right, the hats have arrived … look for them on top of a head near you!)

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