Black Friday

Ok – how many of you were crazy enough to go shopping Friday morning?!? I mean, you really have to like shopping or great prices (or just good in some cases) to venture out on this incredulous day!
This was my third such undertaking and sure to be my last. I went several years ago with my daughter – not a smart choice since she was younger and had no want, need or desire to stand in line for hours for a gift that she herself wasn’t getting. So the following year I took my middle son. He had never heard of “power shopping” and afterwards made it clear that he could care less if he ever did it again. Sleep was much more important and easier to obtain that the treasures I went after.
So just fine. I quit shopping on Black Friday. It’s not that I don’t like to shop alone or I need someone to carry my bags or any thing like that. It just makes more sense. The more the merrier and better chances at success. A “battle plan” can be a good thing in this particular situation. The public is generally a polite, happy and talkative society (ok – with a shove or two here and there) so the wait times in line go by quickly.
This year however, was different. First, I went shopping with my husband. The fact that he went – and did it cheerfully (well, he wasn’t complaining anyway) was indeed a holiday miracle. Our plan was the “swoop and scoop”. He’d drop me off at the designated store’s front door and I’d call him when I was checking out. He’d then swoop in, scoop me up at the door and off we’d go to in search of the next “got to have” item on my list. We thought we were the cat’s meow and had it all figured out.
I could write out the entire adventure for you (I already did butit was so long that I deleted it) but I can sum it up with one word: horrendous.For example, when we parked at the first store, we were sitting in our vehicle watching a young man maneuver through the parking lot, peeking into a car here and there, trying a door a couple of times. He turned and saw us watching him and continued on like it was the order for the day! He did manage to move on through the lot away from us pretty quickly. Then the store employees acted shocked that they had so many customers and the people were just awful! Crabby, rude and down right mean! And this was just the first store! WOW! Where did the holiday spirit go? Did it even come out?
We did manage to obtain 2 out of the 4 items we were after so we felt lucky in that respect. We talked about it on the way home however, and decided that there wasn’t anything that we needed or wanted to give that badly to justify going through the entire experience again. It was a learning experience and we learned we don’t like it!
We were home just as the littlest one was getting up for the day so we all had breakfast and started putting up Christmas decorations. It turned out to be a wonderful day all around - heck - even the weather cooperated!
‘Tis the Season!