My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

It’s that time of year again. There’s just something about the lead up to the day after Thanksgiving sales. Maybe it’s the trill of the hunt. Or it’s the energy of the crowds. Or maybe I’m just insane! Don’t be so quick to agree with that one. I love Black Friday. No. I am not one of those people that camps out for days leading up to opening of the stores the Friday after Thanksgiving. I don’t even really get there that much before the doors open. I don’t even think I have ever really gone out with my heart set on getting that “one thing”. It’s just turned into a yearly tradition that I look forward to. I get up super early and in the wee hours of the morning, I head out into a shoppers abyss with my mom and sister. We’ll hit Kohls, JCPenny, Target, Walgreens and Shopko before the sun even rises. We’ve learned that if we do that and attempt to get breakfast someplace by 8, we can call it a successful outing.Last year was our first year that we had my nephew Matt come along. He had never experience the hysteria and horror that is Black Friday. So to introduce him properly, we opted to be at WalMart when the doors opened at 5am. The WalMarts here are 24 hours so there was no need to wait outside in the bitter late November air. However, the parts of the store that EVERYONE was headed into were roped off. So lines formed in housewares, children’s socks and the anti-freeze aisle. The tension of the crowd as it grew larger was palpable and at about 5 minutes to 5, someone got antsy and tried to jump the barrier into the toy department. The roar of the crowd was frightening. The look Matt gave me was priceless. Yes. We were heading into that mob and a MOB it was. I was looking for the cheap games. I had my eye on Operation which I think they were selling for about 5 bucks. I was maybe 10 feet away and figured that the other big ticket items were what people were after. My odds of getting the Operation game were pretty good. Naive. Stupid. Blindly optimistic I was for thinking that although the game was only yards away, that by 5:00 and 10 seconds, I would not only lose my sights on the game, but end up stuck in the toy department with no way out. The the once 10 feet tall piles of toys neatly stacked before the rush were now rubble. There was an audible rumbling once the ropes were dropped and the surge of humanity made its way into this tiny section of the store. I heard Matt let out a little yelp on the 2 way radios we brought with us. I urged him to go after the digital frame that I wanted and to meet me up front at the checkstands. A few minutes later he met up with me breathless but victorious because in his hands he held a box with a coveted digital frame. Unfortunately, it was the wrong one…LOL. It was so “easy ” for him to acquire because not only was this digital frame not on sale, it was not even close to what the other 50 million people in the store were after. I tried to ease his anxiety and reassured him that I wasn’t going to make him go back into the electronics department. “It’s ok, Matt. You did good. I’m proud of you,” I said. Just then a lady in line behind us offered one of the two frames that she managed to snag. Cool. We should just try that all the time and let perfect strangers do the dirty work for us. I am not sure if Matt will brave the day with us this year. Michaela is still too young, I think but I suspect it won’t be too many more years until its her turn to give it a whirl. So, it’s getting closer. If you look, you can already find Black Friday ads that have been leaked online. I already have my list started. Nothing screams BUY ME NOW but at least it’s a start for my annual Black Friday Adventure.