title: Sold Out: How I survived a year of not shopping
author: Robert Llewellyn
description: Robert Llewellyn, host of the Channel 4 series Scrapheap Challenge and star of the cult TV series Red Dwarf, has also worked as a screen-writer, stand-up comic, on-line video guru and was once a maker of bespoke tassel loafers. He has written biographies, screenplays and four novels.
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  ![Image Missing](../Images/00001.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
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  [www.orbitbooks.net](http://www.orbitbooks.net)
  
  
  _To Mike, who brings color to my world_
  
  
  ![Image Missing](../Images/00003.jpeg)
  
  
  ## 1
  
  
  
  
  
  “You should have brought the van,” said my stepdaughter. She sounded like
  herself, though the expression on her face was still a little tight.
  
  
  
  
  
  “I shouldn’t have brought anything, including us,” I muttered, shoving harder
  on the hatch. My Rabbit had a lot of cargo space for a little car. We’d only
  been here twenty minutes. I shop at Walmart all the time, and I never come out
  with this much stuff. We’d even left before the big midnight reveal. And
  still—I had all this _stuff_. Most of which had not been on sale. Who does
  that?
  
  
  
  
  
  “Oh, come on,” she scoffed, determinedly cheerful. “It’s Black Friday.
  Everyone shops Black Friday.”
  
  
  
  
  
  I looked up from the stubborn lid of my poor beleaguered car and glanced
  around the parking lot of Home 