Friday morning at 5:00 a.m. found me in my car, headed to Walmart to begin my Black Friday shopping. Given that I had not gone to sleep until after 11:00 p.m. the night before, I was quite shocked to discover that I didn’t have much trouble climbing out of bed at 4:15 a.m. Mind you, getting up at that hour to go to work, and getting up at that hour to go SHOPPING are two very different scenarios. And you can bet that I was ready for some serious shopping.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my boys (hubby and kiddo), but on Thanksgiving I spent all day with just boys. This year we were supposed to spend Thanksgiving in Quincy with Justin’s family, but his grandma was admitted to the hospital the day before Thanksgiving so we decided it would be best for us to stay and help out. Justin’s dad drove down on Thanksgiving Day to see his mom, so he joined us for dinner. And we invited Grandpa Wayne to come to dinner as well, after he was done visiting Grandma at the hospital. So, our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of three and a half men, and me. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving, but I’m sure you can understand why I was in desperate need of some serious girly shopping time the following day. I had scoped out all the ads the night before and planned my strategy of attack. If only I knew what awaited me…
For starters, our brand new Walmart parking lot was packed! Seriously, that store didn’t see that many cars when it opened just two months ago, and that is saying something for this neck of the woods (no offense to my fellow LC Valley residents). At that point I knew I was in over my head. I went straight to the toy aisles to achieve my first mission: gifts for nieces and nephews. On my way there I think I was nearly run over three different times by shopping carts. In fact, I think two of those three near death experiences may have been by the same crazy shopper. They were out to get me, I tell ya!
As I hightailed it through the store, picking up my mere four items, I was shocked to hear people detailing how they had been at the 24 hour store since 1:00 a.m., just loading their carts with the sale goods and then waiting for the official 5:00 a.m. store price so they could checkout. Can you say crazy!? Where do these people come from? I was still at home in my turkey coma at 1:00 a.m.
My one blessed experience at Walmart (and perhaps my greatest Walmart experience ever) was when I asked a store manager, who just happened to be strolling by me, where the Tupperware set I was looking for might be located. He helped me search the area where he thought it had been stocked, but then admitted they were probably all gone. I decided I wasn’t going to look all over the entire store for a stupid Tupperware set and wandered off to another department. But about thirty seconds later I heard someone behind me shout “I found one!” Of course, I didn’t turn my head at this exclamation because I just figured it was another crazed shopper. But in fact, it was the manager. He had found the very last Tupperware set, which was on a spectacular sale by the way, and had spotted and followed my green hat as I wandered into the other department. Talk about amazing customer service, especially on Black Friday. So, a shout out to Walmart manager Brad - you rock!
I had also hoped to find some new pajamas for Kendry on this shopping trip. My little sprout of a child is now wearing pajamas in the 12-18mth length since he is so long/tall, and I think he grows out of a new pair or two every week. I could probably make his current pj’s last longer by snipping off the feet, or by simply buying pj’s with no enclosed feet on them, but the footie pajamas are just so darn cute on babies! Walmart had advertised $3 pajamas for kids on Black Friday, so after Rock Star Manager Brad got me my Tupperware set I set out in search of the pj’s aisle. Once I spotted the pj’s, however, I knew it was time to leave. The other mothers like me were scavenging over the bin like vultures. Even if I had wanted to bust out my high school basketball “boxing out” skills to vie for position around the bin, I knew it would be impossible to find what I was looking for anyway. The pj’s were no longer neatly stacked by size and pattern, rather they were all in one big heap, having been rampaged by the mothers before me. Fortunately for me, I had less than 10 items for checkout so I didn’t have to wait in line for an hour to escape the mayhem that was Walmart.
I will admit that after this start to the day the other stores seemed a lot less crazy, or maybe I was just acclimated to the shopping chaos. Either way, aside from my half hour wait at Kmart just to checkout, the rest of my stops were quick and successful. I got my three huge awesome-smelling candles for just $9, an adorable holiday sweater with matching hat and mittens for Kendry, the regular socks and underwear stash for Justin, and pretty much the rest of my Christmas gifts for everyone else on my list.
The one drag was not finding our California King sheet set at Costco, even through they had advertised Queen, King and California King sizes. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all, right?
So, in summation, I’m not sure this whole Black Friday thing its all its cracked up to be. I suppose if I was looking to buy something more pricey like a TV, furniture or computer, the Black Friday sales might help me out. But until I have extra cash to shop for items of that caliber, I think sleeping in and having a lazy morning with my boys wins hands down.
Yes, this is going to be a magnificent Christmas tradition.
