Saturday, November 29, 2008

Black Friday and the Shopping Frenzy

I have never, ever gone shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. I don't like going to the mall in the first place because of the daily crowds and never could get into the idea of shopping on the biggest sale day of the year. I am normally at work on Thanksgiving so honestly I have never had the opportunity to partake in the shopping event even if I wanted to. Here I was OFF on Thanksgiving and I developed the desire to see what the hoopla was all about. I woke up at 2am... I am a night person thru and thru.. and by 4am I was getting excited at the prospect of hitting the sales. I woke Stan to see if he wanted to go and we were dressed and out the door by 4:30am. Going to the mall we passed Walmart and the lot was full with people still in the drive trying to get in. It looked like sharks in a feeding frenzy. I kept saying to Stan how excited I was to finally take part in this yearly event. He was not nearly as excited. The mall was not busy and we went into Macy's first. My excitement dwindled as I expected to see massive discounts that were not in evidence. I had no plan exactly I just wanted to be hit by the 'buy-me' buzz that accompanies big discounts. We went up to housewares and I felt I HAD to buy something because I did come out after all. I bought myself a Tassimo single cup coffee maker that I had wanted. I saved 10 bucks and I had a tiny zing on the excitement scale but it didn't last. I wandered around but really nothing appealed to me. We went into Sears and there I purchased a toaster, two hand towels, a cookie sheet, and some cooking utensils for non-stick cookware. Apparently my zing-ometer was dead. I found myself bored and wanting to leave as I was waiting to pay for my purchases. The highlight of the shopping trip was standing in the pay line when we struck up a conversation with a gentleman from Canada. He moved to our area when he was recruited by Stullers. We discussed what a great company that was and moved on to the wonderfulness of Lafayette and Louisiana as a whole. To that nice gentleman's wife: you are getting a fabulous mixer and an electric grill. However the absolute best gift of all is that your husband loves you dearly and thinks that the sun rises because of you AND he is not above telling strangers what a wonderful woman you are!!! I got a great ZING out of that!!!! My overall disappointment at the sales was over shadowed by my meeting Mr. 'Canada' and hearing about his wife. I left the mall to go home feeling pretty good about the trip even though the gift buying was a bust(except what I bought for me)
Will I go again next year???..ummm no, probably not, unless I have a great shopping plan or wish to exchange airborn bacteria with the vast mulittudes looking for a bargain.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You need to visit Ohio for Black Friday excitement. Suzanne left the house just before 3am, picked up a friend, then headed to the stores. She has pictures on her cell phone to show the lines outside Kohl's Dept Store at 4am. She claims she had to fight for my present. It was $50 instead of $120. I can't wait to see what it is! -Mindy