Black Friday (or, Why Am I Showered This Early When I Don't Shop For Anyone But Myself?)

Oh yes. Black Friday. For you not paying attention to the news for the last fifty years, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, when stores open super early and offer crazy deals on all the must-haves of the year. People start (and finish) their Christmas shopping, buy big-screen TVs and Cabbage Patch dolls and socks. The air is festive and Christmas-like, people are friendly and happy and courteous and don't steal your cart.

Oh wait, yes they do. Plus they're not friendly. Or happy. Or courteous.

That Marshy and I descended upon the Fred Meyer at around 6:30 - no small feat for her since she drove to my house from Scappoose (which seriously is like 750 miles away). Fred Meyer, I recently found out, has all their socks on sale 1/2 off on Black Friday, and God knows I need socks, so right when you walk in to the main entrance their are tables and tables of socks. And people. You don't want to get in the way of a dedicated sock buyer in a situation like this. We scored a cart and parked it and took turns watching the cart and finding socks, but when it came time to find some slippers, I foolishly left the sock-filled cart in an inconspicuous spot and jumped into the slipper fray. Bad idea. Moments later we found ourselves cart- and sock-less, like the last thirty minutes never happened. I'll never understand a person who steals someone else's cart.

We spent a good amount of time in the Fred Meyer, definitely. Marshy had a pretty big list and there were so many (happy..) people it made maneuvering a bit difficult. Last purchase on the stop was a TV - 47" for the low, low price of $749. We had a boy help us load the monstrosity into the CRV and headed to the mall.

In true TtheD fashion, I hit the Nordstrom and bought absolutely NOTHING on sale. After a torturous half hour at the Game Stop, and a boot purchase for Marshy at the Macys, we trundled back in the CRV and headed toward the Target. We were almost through it purchase-less (there were better advertised things at the KMart and our dogs were starting to bark) when we happened upon two random Magnavox 46" TVs just sitting in the children's section with a sign that said $492. What? $250 less for just one less inch? This is madness! We deliberated on what to do for a little bit, being as how there was already one big screen TV box in the car, and figured we could probably pull it off - purchase and load, then run back to the Fred Meyer and return the other. Which is what we did, after a little bit of a fiasco with the diligent security folks at Bank of America.

Back to the Fred Meyer, back to the socks, this time with a gigantic TV on top of the cart. People were still so FRIENDLY! Mmhmm.

That done, we made a quick stop at the Trader Joe's, and then off to the KMart - by this time the 5-11am deals were done and the parking lot wasn't horrible. We knocked out quite a few things on the list, and finally, after six hours of running around shopping like I had some kind of purpose, she dropped me back at the casita. Where I napped hard. Then forced myself to tan and then came home in time for kickoff. And texted all night long with my favorite person in the world, Brad C. in Cleveland.

It was a very fun-filled day all around, if I do say so myself, despite the crowds and the elbow shots to the ribcage and my confronting several determined women and the parking spot stalkers and the rain and my cracking fingers. Let the holidays begin, I say! May it be frantic for everyone else and super-relaxing for me!