Won’t be doing that again

I said I would never do the day after Thanksgiving shopping. The crowds, the early hours,  blah, blah, blah….I wasn’t gonna be that girl. Well, last year was the first time I became that girl. I talked Randy into getting up with me at 4:30am and going to Walmart. I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep that night anticipating all the deals we would find. I had NO idea what to expect. We pulled into the parking lot at 5:00am, right when the doors opened. I resisted the urge to break into a salivating consumer sprint from the back of the parking lot to the front doors. Instead we walked casually through the mile long parking lot. Got inside the doors and with one look around it was confirmed that we should’ve run because just about every center display thingy was empty. I was after the Leapster but they were all gone. We thought we had a brilliantly novel idea of splitting up and taking phones with us. Evidently that’s like preschool basics for Black Friday….more like human instinct. So Randy hits the electronic dept. while I go for other toys. Randy met me back a few minutes later looking half dazed and a bit pale. Some dude walked away with a HUGE flat screen TV for el cheap-o but that dude had been waiting in line for hours. We didn’t know that part of it. People were working in teams; dividing and conquering. And then there was us looking like a deer in headlights. The couple who had just strolled in thinking we’d pick up a loaf of bread and some toys. Oh, we walked away with a few things. A few “I’ll be derned if I don’t walk away with something after waking up this early and being swept away by Black Friday-ness!” things. And they were good deals but it’s not what we were looking for. I later found out from a friend of mine that she woke up late Friday morning, had a bowl of cereal and moseyed on over to Wal-Mart at 10:30am and picked up the very Leapster I had been looking for. I was so happy for her and overwhelmed with joy that I spit and stomped my feet. So after that experience we decided we would never ever lose sleep over something like that again……

Until I got the Thanksgiving Day paper this Thursday. And I began to see items that we had already talked about getting for Sophie for Christmas. They were half price door busters! AND the store opened at 10:00pm. I could handle a 10pm – midnight deal. I could SO do that. I made my list and blew out of the house at 9:40pm leaving me ten minutes to spare. Because I learned from last year you couldn’t just be on time. You had to be at least five minutes early. Or so I thought. But those ten minutes were actually spent in traffic. As I rounded the corner into the parking lot (on two wheels) I saw masses of people standing outside and immediately I thought, “Oh, cool! Home Goods, Office Max, Ulta, Rack Room and about twenty other stores in the strip mall are ALL opening at 10:00pm! This is awesome!!!” But I knew I wanted to start with Toys R Us first. So I parked in the only open parking spot and headed for the front doors. The closer I got the more excited I got. I was by myself this time so I could totally run if I wanted to. We were in GA so I felt less compelled to act my age since I don’t  see these people on a regular basis. So I did it. I RAN like a dork all the way through the parking lot.  I’m so sure I looked just like this woman. I looked through a lot of pictures on Google images and never found one of “woman running through parking lot”. Ha! Imagine that. Nobody was caught on camera looking like a fool. Or maybe there’s just one fool? ha! I deserved that. Just this chickadee doing arial splits on the way to work. And so casually.

Well, the closer I got I began to hear people yell and boo at other people who were trying to break in line.  ALL those people that I thought were there for other stores were actually in line for the only store open…..Toys R Us. Since I was out of breath at this point I decided to walk. So I was walking against the long line that was outside the store trying to come up with an alternative plan other than getting back in the van and heading home. But I couldn’t come up with anything so I just joined all the other suckers and waited. For two hours. Just to get inside the doors of Toys R Us. But I was lucky because I  got in line behind two really cool people. She was prego with child number two and they had a four year old like us and we just had a good time laughing and making fun of all the wacko’s that were waiting in a two hour line for toys. Of course we weren’t one of them. ha! The husband was telling me all the tricks of the trade and the wife shared her magazine with me that showed all the deals. I’m sure we looked like this…..

We agreed to look out for each other when it came time to move in for the crossing of the Toys R Us threshold. We would not allow each other to be trampled. I could not believe all these suckers giving in to the marketing scheme of our retail stores that would go so low as to pull people from their families on Thanksgiving Day. I mean some of these people had been standing in line since the early afternoon. I think the pilgrims would be appalled at the thought of a Thanksgiving turkey being roasted on a portable grill on a Toys R Us sidewalk. Never ever would they have imagined that day would involve people booing other people for trying to break in line over plastic cowboys and Indians and such. I would never do that….. again. The more I thought about it the more disgusted I became. Yet I remained in line and triple dog dared anyone to get in front of me. I read my list of five items over and over to make sure I had it in my head right. I did because my new friends tested me over it. They had their list down too. Swing set,wonder pets and Thomas the Train table. See if you go in and you have to refer to your list you might lose time. In one glance down you could lose that last item on the shelf. That happened to me. I was looking for a Graco crib set that was on sale for $19 and they were all gone. I was convinced it was because I didn’t run to the back of the store when I finally got through the doors. Or perhaps it got swiped up when I double checked my list to make sure I wasn’t just making up a need to add to my huge plastic bag. But I asked an employee to check the back and they did have more. So I was able to get all the things on my list except for one. The twin baby dolls were slap out. I assume all the successful IVF’rs  snagged those babies up faster than the RE could say “you owe me ten grand!”  So I guess it was a successful shopping trip overall. And while I saved a lot of money and stayed within the budget I’m still a bit disappointed in myself. For being one of those wacked out people in line for two hours. For being so excited about all my good deals that I couldn’t sleep until 3am and almost went back out at 4am to Target to get Star Wars lego pj’s for $5. But didn’t. I will at least say this: I will never ever do that again. Ever. And this time I mean it.

So did you do anything this Thanksgiving you swear you’ll never do again?