Black Friday

I have never been out shopping in the madness known as Black Friday, that is until this year. Yes, I know its not correct, but the curiosity finally got the best of me. I yearn to experience as much of life as I possibly can ( within some moral and legal limits mind you ) so I felt this was something that I was just missing out on. I know its traditionally a 'girl' thing as well but I just wanted to find out what its all about. I don't take Christmas shopping too seriously most of the time because my wife is easy to buy for :

1. Vera Bradley
2. Bling Bling
3. Estee Lauder
4. Nothing with a cord
5. Nothing that requires work
6. Anything Mac/Apple/ I-phone related.

Those are the rules and she is happy. ( Happy wife/happy life. (psssst, that's BS by the way)) Gracie isn't too hard to buy for either because these days she sees commercials and she has friends who have stuff she doesn't , so just listen to the " I want ....................." and there ya go. This year and last year have been pretty financially troubled so that's my whole list to buy for. This year my wife wont be getting anything from her list because the $ just isn't there. Gracie gets 3 things for Christmas, we do this to help tie Jesus into the season for her. Having said all this, shopping should be reasonably affordable and the list is short, so I decided this year was the year to venture into the mayhem and foolishness.

I did go about this in a rather male-brain sort of way however. I planned ahead in a logical manner, mapped out my movements, planned my purchases, etc. I checked out adds, and went online to find the items I was searching for. I even went so far as to call one of the stores, find out what time they opened and verified that they did indeed have the item I was interested in and that they had several of them. I was rather pleased with myself at this point, but ( and you who've been out on Black Friday are already laughing at me) this effort was pointless and the effort that I needed to engage in went undone.

Lesson one, actually go to the store to verify not only the existence of the item, but more importantly the exact location of the item. Why you ask? Well, I called and talked to Neil at Gamestop to make sure they had a PINK refurbished DS Lite for Gracie, and the accessories and games to go with it. Neil told me that he had 8 to choose from, plenty of games and accessories and they opened at 6 but there was no need to be there that early for this item. Well my silly ignorant self listened to Neil. More on that in a minute.

So, Black Friday morning 5 AM. I arise, gird my loins and prepare myself for the butt whoopin' I am about to receive. I proudly observe that I am up early and the entire neighborhood is dark. I later realize that is because the other Black Friday shoppers have left long ago, and the rest of the normal people are still snug in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. I put on my Kevlar under britches, grab a can of mace and put 911 on my speed dial, now I am ready to head to Walmart. I figure I can hit Walmart at 5:45 and still be at Gamestop by 6:30. ( stop laughing, I only wanted one thing from Walmart, it wasn't like I was going to walk around and look at stuff and Gamestop is in the same area so how long could it take?)

As I arrive at the scene of the conflict I am surprised that I cannot even park with 1/2 mile or better of Walmart.

Lesson two: If I had really needed to go to Walmart I would need a driver to circle around, drop me off and then initiate a holding pattern like a bank robber. Once leaving I could phone the get away driver to come past and I could run out into the fray and dive in the backseat without the car ever actually stopping.

I decided that my rotund,bald, flat footed and yet sexy frame of a man didn't really need to go into Walmart after all. If I did it would through my schedule off by hours and I still had places I needed to go. So I went on over to Gamestop since it hadn't opened yet. Oh, wait a minute, Neil said they open at 6, its only 5:45 and they are crowded out the door. How can this be? Did Neil lie to me? No, Neil didn't lie, they had to open early because of the crowd, didn't want anybody getting hurt. I manage to worm, (yes worm, walk isn't possible in this sea of humanity) into the store. I make my first observation, if somebody yells fire, we are all gonna die trying to squeeze back out of here. My second observation is that I cant actually shop in here (see Lesson one) because I cant move around and find what I need. This is a problem, I don't know what games I need to get, where the accessories are, or where the DS itself is.

Now its time to rely on the Christmas kindness of other more experienced shoppers. I have learned that "find the moms" is always a good shopping rule, the more kids the moms have, the more likely they are to be able to help, but sometimes the more kids they have, the less willing they are to help. I spot a mom with 2 daughters, I figure she is in the safe zone, enough kids to know how to help, not so many she is going to poke me in the eye for getting in her zip code. She is pressed up against the wall sorting through the game selection and her two daughters (age 8 and 12) are sitting on the floor going through the lower racks. I say something helpless and ignorant sounding and much to my glorious happiness they take pity on me, the poor lost dad who should have had enough sense to stay home. As I beam inside that my minor deception has worked (I really am not that helpless and ignorant, that's my story and I'm sticking to it) the nice lady informs me that the DS are behind the counter, and asks how old my child is and what gender or what genre of games. I said she is 6 and likes littlest pet shops. Each child setting in the floor then sticks up a hand with a game in it, one Littlest Pet Shop adventure and one Princess something or other, one more and I am done. Mom hands me the third seconds later, and I am off to get in line.

I now spend the next 35 minutes in line with nose jammed into the bouffant in front of me while trying to spot the accessories out the side of my eye because peripheral vision is all I had, not being able to move and all. I do wish she had used a little less hairspray, it was pokin me in the eye and making me want to sneeze. If I had sneezed, I think she may have turned and beat me to death with her purse, but I wasn't going to find out. Remember the scene from Finding Nemo when Dori gets into the net with the Tuna and tells them all to just keep swimming? Yeah, that's the line at Gamestop, I was a tuna. I finally get to the front of the line and ask him about the 8 PINK DS refurbs, he tells me he has two left and I check them out and pick and pay. Doing my best Sweetness impersonation I stiff arm a teen and do a spin move on a mom and plow through the line to reach the door. Touchdown, I am outside, and can breath again.

I then head to Children's Place to buy some clothes for Gracie. Not a chance of seeing any dads in there, trust me. I am headed into enemy territory, the moms only zone, buying clothes for a little girl. I do enjoy the oddity of it all though, and I do pretty well picking clothes for Gracie. I just have enough sense to get help, both finding things and making sure they work together. On Black Friday I got almost $200 worth of stuff for $50, I was happy. Nothing too extraordinary happened after this point, but the deals were worth the effort, so I will do it again.

Next year I am thinking of either a seeing eye dog to help me get better parking, ( that might not work, blind people don't drive much so I don't know that anybody will buy that one), or maybe renting a wheel chair and asking someone in the store to be my shopping assistant, that might work.