Black Friday

I am no longer a virgin.  A 'Black Friday' virgin that is.


Yes, even I am perplexed as to how I’ve managed to miss the fun all these years, the best I can figure is the following timeline:


In the early years… I was too broke to take advantage of the good deals.


Once I started making some jack... I was probably too hung-over to make the early morning call.


After babies came along… I was way too friggin exhausted to get up exactly four hours after I went to bed.


Then for years, when our kids got a little older… we would hit the road for Thanksgiving with relatives in faraway places, (think Great Bend, Wichita… you know, the exotic spots) and all I could do was salivate in the car over the tempting ads as we drove further and further away from the deals.


This is the first year in many that we are actually in town for Black Friday. So I gobbled up those ads yesterday morning before I even gave thought to gobbling the bird. I have one big-ticket item in mind for someone special and Target had a hell of a deal. “Tar-jhay” it would be.


11:30p.m. last night: I lay out sweatpants, sweatshirt and Uggs for easy a.m. access.


3:10a.m.: I reach over and turn the alarm off before it actually goes off; my anticipation/dread of the task ahead had my internal alarm clock go off over an hour earlier. Little did I know (being a virgin and all) that the extra hour would have been better spent in line at Target, than fretting in bed.


3:20a.m.: I finally rouse my sorry arse out of bed and into my shopping fatigues, fantasizing about the extra large cup of Joe I’ll soon have my chilly fingers wrapped around thanks to Mickey D’s.


3:30a.m.: Oh. No. Say it ain’t so. McDonalds doesn’t open until 6a.m.??? Are they crazy? What lame brain in marketing didn’t realize there would be hoards of people hitting the roads at this hour in search of bargains? A large cup of Joe for a buck is about as good a bargain as you can get these days and the powers that be at the Golden Arches missed it? I seriously contemplate going home at this point.


3:45a.m.: Holy Moly! The parking lot is jammed. Something tells me these people are not in line for the $18 Toy Story Twin bedding set. These folks are serious; it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what most of them are here for. I actually trot through the parking lot… (The first clue I have truly lost my mind.)


3:50a.m.: I finally arrive at the back of the line. Naively, I went to the front door first. From there I was directed around the south side of the building. My already shortened breath (remember, I was trotting!) was further challenged when I realized the line rivaled that of the Garth Brooks concert I stood in a few years back. When I got to what I mistakenly thought was the end of it, I was directed to take a right, which now put me on the west side of the building near the loading docks. I probably would have left at that point and headed back home to bed, but I needed a rest from all that exercise.


Waiting in line turned out to be quite fascinating. First off… people come in pairs, groups even; I was definitely in the minority being alone. That said, I would never do that to a friend… between the obnoxious time of day and the lack of caffeine flowing through my bloodstream, no one deserves that wrath. But people were jovial… laughing, sharing stories about Black Fridays of past. The gal in front of me even recognized a woman she got into a scuffle with at Toys R Us yesterday because she “cut in line”!!! Man did that get the crowd going… other line-mates wanted her to point the woman out, this is serious business and line cutting is apparently among the worst of the offenses you can commit. (Note to self: How do hard-core BFer’s view “paying-off” someone at the front of the line? Worth investigating.)


The man behind me spotted a woman limping through the line on crutches. He actually starts chastising her for trying to pull that one over on the crowd. “Yeah lady, we’re all buying your broken leg act. I’ve got my grandma up here with her walker… Shhhh Grannie... I’ll change your diaper later, as soon as you thump yourself back to the toy department and get Sara that doll house”. Honest to Pete, could I make this up?


4:00a.m.: And we’re off. The line is moving swiftly, it almost makes me glad to be in the back.  I hear a lot of hootin and hollerin up front and suddenly remember last year’s bone-crushing Wal-Mart video. Sometimes it's good to be late to the party I guess.


4:03a.m.: After securing a cart, which I am very proud of… I commit another virgin faux pas. The TV’s are not in the electronics department folks. Noooooooooo… this particular TV is in the Sporting Goods Department; how did everyone but me know that?


4:04a.m.: Panic is setting in. People all around me have my stinkin TV in their carts. I plead with a woman to tell me where she found it. “Oh they’re all gone,” she tells me quite bragadociously. “They only had 40, that’s why I camped out at 11p.m. last night.


“Sweet Jesus” I think to myself. I cannot believe I fell for this trick. I am now standing in the middle of a Target at four in the friggin morning with an empty cart and no plan. None. I don’t know and I don’t care what else they have. All I know is I got shut out on what I came here for!


4:05a.m.: I spy with my little eye another item in someone’s cart that I remember having an interest in for the boy child. “Well, at least I can get that” I told myself and headed back toward the woman’s department; the nice woman who had already secured one told me where they were hidden. As I’m putting it in my cart, I notice a feeding frenzy going on in the next aisle… this, I now know… is how they hook ya!


4:07a.m.: I whip out my debit card at the register as a thoughtful Target employee helps me maneuver my new FORTY-SIX inch 1080p LCD HD TV for the cashier to scan. My heart is still racing and I am fearful to look back at the crazed crowd I just barely escaped. I keep seeing that man’s face who made the fatal mistake of hesitating before claiming the last TV! I am sure he too was there for the 32 incher that was priced a hundred bucks less, but hey dude… this is Black Friday, he who hesitates…


4:17a.m.: I slip back into my still warm jammies, shove the dog out of my spot on the bed and try to settle back into dreamland. Mike suddenly startles me by asking “Did you get it”? “Get what?” I sheepishly reply, shocked that he’s awake. “The TV… did you get the TV?” “Um… yeah”, I say somewhat misleadingly… “I got a TV”. “Good… that will be a big hit.” he muttered as he drifted back to sleep.


I like to think this will be my first and last experience with Black Friday; although no longer a virgin, its never too late to practice abstinence! I have an uneasiness in my belly; I feel kind of dirty. Not only is there some nice man crawling back into his bed having to confess to his wife that he “didn’t” get a TV because he was outwitted by a Black Friday virgin, I also felt as if I sold out to over-consumption. And the worst part is how easily I caved; my budget, the specs according to wall space in the room… all of it gave way to the chaos we in America call… Black Friday.


So maybe next year I can make it right. I will leave Consumption at home and bring its first cousin Capitalism with me instead. I will set-up a coffee cart and peddle enough Joe to desperate under-caffeinated over-consuming shoppers, so I can afford to pay full price for next year’s “must have” item.  And hopefully… that will include shipping it right to my warm and cozy front door!