As the years go by, the world of big business seems intent on transforming this activity to make it as sacrilegious as possible. Black Friday has, in recent years, has mutated into Black Thursday and Black Saturday, or as I like to call it, the Weekend of Darkness.
And the sick part of it is that my family does it as a tradition.
I would like to say we boycotted this spillover into Thanksgiving Day, but Wal-Mart had $9 Crock-Pot door busters and $3 tiny blenders at eight o'clock pm Thursday night. How can you say no to handheld kitchen appliances?! I found myself strangely convinced that my life wouldn't be the same without one.
Ok, getting there. Post-Thanksgiving dinner, we strategized a devious plan and mapped a route for maximum success. We determined that the best plan of action would be to take the event in shifts so that we might hit all the best sales and leave time for intermittent naps. Lezbehonest, naps were the one way we could give ourselves a competitive edge over all the other shoppers. When their steps slowed and vision started to blur, we'd zip in and out before they could even shake a fist!
8:00pm - Tiny crockpots and blenders
9:30pm - Nap
12:00am - Shoe doorbusters and $10 dollar off coupon
1:30am - Go back home and nap
5:00am - More blenders?
5:30am - Frantic hunt for caffeine
6:00am - Huge appliance sale - toaster ovens $8
7:00am - Losing competitive edge
7:30am - BOGO shoe sale disappointment
8:00pm - Return home, annihilated but successful
After getting our fair share of tiny blenders and crock-pots and returning home for a brief reboot, we headed back into the frenzy. When we arrived at the shoe doorbuster place (I gotta admit, the only real reason I participated in all of this), there was a line forming outside the door to the establishment. I was overcome by sheer terror and shopping mania like a good little consumer and I lept out of the moving vehicle (sorta) and fled toward the line. It was on. I scanned the premises, looking for anyone who showed signs of going after a $10 pair of black faux leather boots. They looked handle-able.
I was so wrong.
That day, I learned the true meaning of the phrase "never get between a woman and her shoes". I was just trying to get a cute new pair of boots but every other woman in there was trying to start a whole new wardrobe from scratch like her very life was depending on it. I swear, these women brought personal attendants to help them hold their purchases.
So, I didn't get the shoes I wanted.
After that, things started getting crazy. I found that we started to lose our grips on reality, charging around the stores like madmen on a mission, then realizing we had nothing to buy. It's contagious! It was time for coffee. We zippity dee doo-ed over to the local grocery store only to find it closed. As most grocery stores are at 2 am. We saw, in the distance, a lighted gas station and hope was re-ignited! My great aunt, still in attack mode, whipped a u-ey in the parking lot. "Oops, I should probably drive straight so I don't look drunk and have to explain to all my church people."
We piled into the gas station and made a huddle around the coffee machine. As we were trying to figure out how to man the operating levers and buttons and whatnot, we were completely oblivious to the poor woman just trying to put a lid on it (her coffee, that is). I'm pretty sure she spent a good 2.5 minutes outside our huddle looking in.
As an aside, Iowans can buy alcohol at the local gas station, at any time of day. I guess Iowa needed some incentive to get people to live there.
This is what the JCPenney sales clerks saw as they walked past the front doors. "Can we just stand inside, it's cold out here!!" They took pity. They let us huddle on the little red welcome mat inside the front doors, which happened to be strategically placed next to the bathroom. I realized I had to release the dragon in my coffee cup now wreaking havoc in my bladder, so I thought I had scored pretty well. Funny thing is, they don't turn on the lights in the bathroom until they start selling things off their shelves and trying to find one of the toilets in a public bathroom in the dark isn't something I'd ever like to replicate. As I was sitting there frightened but progressively relieved, the lights flickered on for 4 seconds. Then back off. Cruel, cruel world.
So anyways, we divided and conquered JCPenney as you might expect. Kitchen appliances were $8 a piece, my brother came out like Rachael Ray's personal kitchen. Anyways, we stopped at McDonalds on the way home to pick up breakfast which was the last indication that we were no longer society appropriate and needed to go home to bed. My aunt pulled the SUV so far up, the speaker was aimed directly at the rear bumper, and the clerk still managed to hear my her yelling the contents of the menu to the rest of the car. "They have egg wraps, sausage McMuffins, Egg McMuffins, yogurt, burritos, and hash browns! What do you want?"
The voice out of the speakers, "All right, that will be $25"
"Wait....no....that's not....no, please clear the menu. Ma'am? MA'AM!"
And that's how the day ended. Back in the privacy of my aunt's house, we carried out the rest of the day sleeping peacefully in bed.
And that, my friends, is how to simultaneously do and not do Black Friday.
Laugh a little!
Manders. <3
