Axios PM
November 24, 2022
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- So thank you for your loyalty, critiques and encouragement through these epic times. My huge gratitude to our Axios colleagues — whose reporting, wisdom and life experience are reflected in each issue of AM and PM.
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Smart Brevity™ count: 496 words ... < 2 mins. Copy edited by Kathie Bozanich.
1 big thing: Black Friday vanishing act
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
The easiest shortcut to spotting Black Friday deals is vanishing before our eyes, Axios' Kelly Tyko reports.
- Sales circulars were a mainstay for holiday shoppers. But retailers are phasing them out, so discounts can shift with inventory.
Why it matters: Now it's way harder to find what's on sale. Kelly discovered this when she was making her own bargain plans.
🗞️ In the past, we could flip through paper or digital ads.
- Now they're gone from Best Buy and Walmart. So customers have to wade through websites and categories and products.
🛍️ Where they're left: Target, Kohl's and JCPenney have large circulars posted online. Lowe's, Home Depot and Macy's have circulars in some newspapers.
- The Washington Post at Mike's door in Arlington, Virginia, this morning included Kohl's, Macy's, Home Depot and Lowe's.
- The (Raleigh) News & Observer (bought on the way to brother Scott's house — I'm typing this in the airport) had those + a few others. But Thanksgiving papers are nothing like the monsters of yore.
- Newspapers recently started charging extra on Thanksgiving to bring you the "biggest paper of the year." (Today's Post is $5; the N&O is $5.99.)
✂️️ Zoom out: Clippable coupons are dying.
- And it's not just Black Friday: CVS, Walgreens and Dick's Sporting Goods are trimming weekly circulars.
2. 🦃 Turkeytowns, USA
Five counties in America have more than 100 turkeys per person, Axios' Erin Davis and Herb Scribner found.
- Besides the three on the map, the other two are Sanpete County, Utah, and Carroll County, Arkansas.
3. ⚖️ America's big birds
4. 🕶️ 1 for the road: Turkey disasters
Washington Post readers, asked for tales of Thanksgiving meals gone awry, told of exploding oven doors and lots of critter encounters — raccoons, squirrels, a ravenous Labrador puppy.
- "How did that dish towel wind up inside the main course?"
A theme of the responses: It's "almost always the blasted turkey that trips people up," both because they're often big (unwieldy and tricky to cook all the way through), and not something we're used to cooking.
🍷 Happy ending: Many readers ended with some variation of: "That was 43 years ago, we love that memory and still laugh about it" or "To this day, when either of us sees a turkey in the oven, we say 'Remember when … '"
🍽️ Thanks for sharing your holiday with us. Now please take a second to thank someone who makes your life better.