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A Retail Carol
Paperback
Publisher: Lee Vetter
Published: Oct 1 2025
Pages: 180
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.41 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Shopping for a last-second gift on Christmas Eve isn't for the faint of heart.
The Westbrook Trading Company is a struggling department store, slowly losing its battle with online shopping. With flickering fluorescent lights, outdated shelves, and the relentless buzz of the Rat Pack Christmas playlist, the store is a weary monument to a retail era long gone by. But tonight, it's the unlikely epicenter of desperation, nostalgia, and absurdity.
As crowds descend in search of the elusive Plastic-Thing-3000-this year's must-have gadget-an ensemble cast of bargain hunters, exhausted employees, and misguided romantics collide in a night of chaos, longing, and tender moments. At the helm is Archibald Hensley III, a joyless miser clinging to cassette tapes and outdated ideals, whose personal regrets echo through the aisles like the Ghost of Christmas Gone Wrong.
Between a pastor who cut his service short to go last minute shopping, a mother trying to win a toy for her daughter, a chintzy snow globe with too much history, and two best friends fumbling to relive their glory days, the night unfolds as a bittersweet, darkly funny reminder that sometimes the worst places bring out the most human parts of us.
A Retail Carol is a satirical holiday story for anyone who's ever spent Christmas Eve fighting for a parking space, battled for a bargain, or tried to buy love with a receipt.
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