Black Friday

I've always avoided the huge "Black Friday" sales crowds, but decided to give it a try this year when I saw some things on my Christmas shopping list on sale. It was crazy!!! Walmart opened at 5am, so I pulled into their parking lot at 4:20 am to find the lot full and a queue of people lined up down the front of the store and wrapped around the side. It was 12 degrees and I wasn't going to stand in line for 40 minutes waiting for the doors to open! So I drove by a couple other stores and found the same situation at each. I decided I wasn't that ambitious a shopper and drove back to one of the restaurants that had opened at 4 am to serve breakfast to early shoppers. When I passed Walmart again the parking lot was overflowing and the road to the store was completely backed up. I was the only customer in the restaurant so had the entire staff chatting with me and waiting on me, kind of like my own personal restaurant. By the time I finished breakfast the nearby department store had been open for half an hour and so I ventured in and did some shopping. I didn't get the big early bird specials, but I got $305 worth of sweaters and winter clothes for $128 so it almost made being up at that ridiculous hour worthwhile. I was back home in bed before the sun came up. Next year I'll go back to sleeping in. It was kind of like the one and only Star Trek convention I ever went to.... intriguing in theory, scary in practice.