Oh Yes I Did!

Black Friday.

Insane Shoppers.

Store sales beginning at midnight.

I did my part for the retailers and for the economy today.

Did anyone else take advantage of all the hoopla of Black Friday sales? Me! Me! As I sit with my hand waving in the air! I did!

Even last night, I didn't get to bed exactly as early as I planned, knowing my intention to be up at 4 a.m. and at the stores by 5. (There's an almost 30 minute drive involved to get to the stores from here.) My parents' were watching my kids for the day and didn't even set a curfew. Not even a request of when I should have been home. LUV-LEEEEE!!! With my sale priorities mapped out and my credit card on standby, I hit my first store. I typically love this store and it is quite apparent that I'm not the only one. I excitedly entered the store and find myself having to navigate through a whole mess of people clumped together in the middle part of the store and along the entire back perimeter of the store. People were just standing there, literally facing one another. A sales associate passes in front of me and dumb, naive, oblivious me asked, "What are all of those people waiting for?" His response, "That's the line." This is when I fell over. Whaa? Apparently, the line was from the registers to the back of the store, it snaked around the middle and back to the back once again. And that, my friends, was a line that this shopper wisely chose to forfeit. Oh no, there are too many good sales elsewhere than to waste 90 minutes waiting in line. (And that's only what the said estimate was reported to be.) I moved on.

I found that like last year, I just had incredible luck with the stores at the mall. And like last year, wondered why they don't have shopping carts to zip around from store to store in the mall. I had to make three trips to the truck, if that tells you anything. Total score of a day for me! And I went back and to the same store that I couldn't bear to wait in line and rummaged around for almost 2 hours since there was no rush to hurry up and wait in line, and still got all but one item that I had on my list. And that was 5 hours after they opened! I did end up waiting in line for nearly 30 minutes, but with my sale items purchased, totally made it worth my time.

I arrived home with pizza for lunch for my dedicated babysitters just after noon. Immeditely following lunch, Elaina and I laid down together for an afternoon nap. Did I happen to mention that our nap lasted 4 hours? Ahh!!! 4 Beautiful, wonderful hours of blissful, restful sleep.

Sleep. Shopping. Sales. My day was great and full and I'm already counting the days until I can do this again next year. What about you?