“Everything Must Go—Even the Rats: Tales from the Electronics Warehouse Apocalypse”
It started with a banner that looked like it had been designed in Microsoft Paint circa 1997: “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS – EVERYTHING MUST GO!” The sign was duct-taped across the front of ZapTech Electronics Warehouse, a 30,000-square-foot mausoleum of outdated tech, mysterious power cords, and enough dust to choke a Roomba.
Word spread like a virus at a LAN party: ZapTech was closing. Forever. This was the big one—the Titanic of liquidation sales. By 10 a.m., a line had formed around the building, filled with tech hoarders, resellers, confused retirees, and a man wearing a trench coat full of empty USB ports “just in case.”
Inside, chaos bloomed like a short-circuited capacitor. An elderly woman tried to trade her bingo winnings for a 1998 printer that only speaks Windows XP. Two guys fist-fought over a wireless router that might have been from the Bush administration (the first one). Someone walked out carrying a CRT television the size of a washing machine like it was their newborn child.
“Do you even know what that thing does?” I asked a man wheeling a box labeled simply: ‘Component Parts – Do Not Open’.
He shrugged. “Nope. But it’s only five bucks, and it buzzes when I touch it.”
Ah, capitalism.
The employees, a skeleton crew of three overworked techies and one guy named Carl who may have been squatting in the break room since 2011, looked like they’d seen war. Their uniforms were covered in packing peanuts and static cling. Carl just kept repeating, “We don’t do refunds,” as if it were a prayer.
There was a bin labeled “MYSTERY CABLES – 50¢ EACH OR 3 FOR $5”, because math had already left the building. Next to it, a 6-year-old was using a barcode scanner like a lightsaber, declaring himself “The Price Jedi.”
The PA system (which cut in and out like a CB radio run through a blender) crackled: “Attention shoppers, the last working fax machine has been sold. Please stop asking. Also, someone’s child is stuck in a box of power strips.”
Eventually, a man with a Bluetooth headset and severe trust issues offered me a “limited edition” set of floppy disks that “definitely contain Bitcoin.” I gave him a Cheez-It and he left me alone.
By noon, the power flickered. Someone claimed it was ghosts. Others said the building was rejecting its own contents. A few brave souls wandered into the backroom, a region ominously marked “NO CUSTOMERS BEYOND THIS POINT – ABANDON HOPE.” One came back holding a Betamax player and muttering something about “The Great Circuit Board of ’73.”
By closing time, the shelves were bare, except for a single universal remote that controlled nothing, a pile of tangled RCA cables, and a lonely George Foreman Grill sitting on a shelf labeled “Professional Audio Equipment.” No one questioned it.
As I left with a bag of unmarked buttons, a mystery laptop charger, and a VHS tape of MacGyver: Season 2, I looked back one last time.
ZapTech may be gone, but its 2003 router firmware updates and questionable surge protectors will live on—in garage sales, Goodwill bins, and haunted eBay listings forever.
