Black As Midnight

I said last year I would never do it again and I did it. I experienced another Black Friday and remembered why I hated it so much.

Only this time, it was worse. Instead of showing up at the mall at 5:30 am, I stood outside, in the cold, at Target, for 30 minutes at midnight. Boy, that place was really busy.

First mistake: buying a Starbuck's coffee and then drinking it. That was the 4th cup I had that day, and even though midnight is considered the next day, it really isn't. I felt nauseous.

But it get gets worse. One of my boys has been asking for a Kindle forever, which is slang for a long time. Target was offering $50 off the one with a keyboard and that was enough for me to stay awake. I had no idea that waiting outside Target for 30 minutes until the doors opened was going to be the high point of my day.

First step: get into the store and ask a salesperson in electronics to put a kindle aside for you, with your name on it via post-it note. Step 2: Stand in another line to buy it. Luckily I was surrounded by very passive and friendly people. They helped me maintain my grouchiness to a minimum. I was also lucky to have another son with me, the one I refer to as "the shopper."

Frankly, that boy is channeling my mother, may she rest in peace. Nobody shopped like her. We took turns waiting in line and shopping the rest of the store. Nearly 2 hours later, when we got to the cashier, we learned that all the other stuff we had accumulated over that time had to be purchased at the regular check-out line. Okay, time to kill people.

But my shopper son kept me calm and we breezed through check-out line #2 and got home at 2:45 am. Slept in this morning until 7:30 am, and leaped out of bed because I have two kids going to school today, both of which were late.

I'm thinking of getting t-shirts made for next year's shoppers that says: My parents shopped Black Friday and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." Selling those might offset my own personal balance of trade.