There's a towel warmer, brand-new in its original box on the top shelf of my closet. The red price tag says, "Regular Price $39.99, clearance $7.68." This is one of those wall mounted chrome towel warmers that sold for $400 in the 80's. It'll be there until the bathroom remodel is finished. For that, I negotiated a deal with a contractor who's a friend of a friend's. He's doing the job at half the Home Depot quote as long as I don't mind if he fits us in-between more lucrative jobs. I'm patient - Without patience, I couldn't be a Clearance Lady.

Wednesday morning, 9:05 AM: The female security guard inside Target nods as I enter. She's seen me before. I have no idea if I'll leave with a few items or a cartful. I go strait for the furthest isles, the unbeaten path. A graying woman in her 40's pulls around the corner and pops her head out to look at me, avoiding the end cap until I'm done, but watching what I consider a good deal. In the next section, a blond in her 30's with a 2-year-old in tow, beelines to the red-labeled shelves. We've seen each other before.

We're Clearance Ladies. We exchange web sites, but not names. We have secrets...

Why we do it - To the naked eye, you'd think we crawl out of our homes on early weekdays to avoid the crowds. We're there because we know when store staff lowers clearance prices. Humbly, we admit that it's a way to add value, to provide champagne for our families at beer prices when we don't have salaries to justify our extravagances. Or we justify the expense, promising to sell treasures for a profit on eBay(R). Wal-Mart(R) has Epson(R) printer cartridges on clearance at $2.50 that would be a bargain at $9.99 to an eBayer.

A good deal is better than chocolate – Forget Atkins(R), South Beach(R) and the other popular diets. When you're really craving something satisfying, forget the chocolate, potato chips and ice cream. Go shopping instead. Your assignment is to buy something beautiful at the biggest possible discount that you would never dare to buy at full price. Tuesday Morning had an incredible wall fountain at $60 that retails in garden shops for $500.

It's not teamwork - Nope; clearance shopping is a dog-eat-dog world. I'd be great if we could have a web site and say things like, "Hey, nobody buy the electronic dart boards at Target until they get down to at least 25 bucks." But it doesn't work that way. As soon as you'd post that message, dozens of clearance ladies would go over and buy them at $49.98 - after all, that's already half off. Sorry, but the $15 color printers at Wal-Mart(R) are gone.

OK, we do organize, sometimes - The blond lady with the 2-year-old and I do work together. It goes like this, "I'd buy this 12-in-one game set. It's a great deal at $68. I've seen it for $300. But my husband would kill me." Then she says something like, "Save it

for a gift. You'd spend that much on a gift, right? Groundhog day would be good. Or maybe you could just hide it, but not real well, so the kids will find it and you can't use it for a gift anymore."
"Good thinking, I answer, "They're heavy. Let's help each other load them into our carts." We do share information about good clearance sections, after we've worked them over for ourselves. Sometimes you see real teamwork when clearance ladies call their friends on their cell phones, "Jessica, I got the last motorized mini-car at $2, but they're some paint sets left. Should I pick some up for you?" Teamwork? Kind of.

You have to be a packrat - Remember the diet? Half the fun is filling a closet and keeping track of its retail value v. the total you paid. When I need a bag of Ruffles real bad, I visit my electric towel warmer. There's also a bubble gum machine with stand I paid $3

for and a dozen other treasures. When I get less emotionally attached, I sell some (just some) on eBay(R) to make room for more. I guess that's another confession.

We aren't who you think we are - Before I became one, I imagined clearance ladies as stay-at-home soccer moms whose high point in life was being the captain on the cheerleading team and then marrying the quarterback before settling down to have five kids. Not so. I know one with an Ivy League Ph.D. that speaks three languages fluently and another who was a V.P. of Marketing.

Why we don't get "real jobs"? - I've read articles reporting that well-educated women in their mid-30's leave the workforce in droves, choosing to be with their families instead. Yes, it's all about choice. A) You can choose to drive to a place where you have to

sit at a desk and pretend you like the person, called "the boss" who thinks he's higher caliber than you, or, B) You can stay home and work 24 hours a day for little people who give you hugs. Duh, what would you choose? By the time they hit 35 most women have discovered that the "game" is more like chess than checkers and peons simply don't get crowned. I don't imagine that we're the most attractive crowd as employees either, because within 10 or 15 years after graduation, we figure out that the carrot isn't real and ask for what we want: money and integrity. If Kenneth Laye were a 36-year-old woman with four kids, Enron would still be humming.

Then there is a question about money. After all, we work for money right? First of all, a woman's pay is inertly proportional to the quantity of young children she has. No, I haven't seen studies on this but I'd bet my towel warmer that when you factor out single moms and women with grown children, and those whose husbands are retired, you'd find it's true. Before kids, you can be making $90K. One pops out and you miss raises during maternity leave or worse yet, are laid off. By kid #3, you can land a job at Trader Joes at $36K. Now that's not bad since you have your kids' tuition to think about, but we worked it out one day. If hubby is making a decent salary as an individual contributor in Silicon Valley , you need to earn $36K just to cover school-aged kid extended care and the tax increase. A friend of mine with three preschool aged kids did her math one day and found a $70K break-even point. Yes, we're better off working at home, given the choices.

Clearance ladies have brilliant minds. They study and memorize prices so they can spot a deal. My marketing friend specializes in Barbie(R) toys. She knows the market in depth, her mind tattooed with SKUs and models of every Barbie(R) brand toy Mattel(R) has made over the past five years. She's earned about $1K a year despite the linoleum lizards clamoring at her feet - that's roughly equivalent to $71 in her book. Not bad.

As I pulled into the school parking lot this afternoon my daughter said, "Mom, you seem to be in a good mood. You must have either eaten chocolate or bought something." She was right on both counts. I found chocolate on clearance - 75% off.

Diana Richomme, pictured here checking prices over the phone, is a freelance writer in San Jose, CA.