Black Friday

This year I went shopping at 5am with my mom for Christmas gifts.

We usually go just for fun, but the past few years have been a bust since there hasn't been much we've wanted/needed to get and there haven't been any good deals. But, my mom has been scouting out television sets for my brother and I since our old TV got struck by lightning and the new TV has about a 5 by 5 inch screen. Seriously. Neither of us watch much TV but the one we have is a little ridiculous.

Anyway, we searched for the deals and decided to start our outing at Walmart on Nicholasville Road. Thankfully, we were not at the store in New York where a worker was killed today as a result of the crowds, but I can see how things get out of control. First, there was NO parking spaces left in the entire Walmart parking lot. I've always thought that they had an obscene amount of parking but people had spilled over across the street to Lowes and Macaroni Grill, McDonalds and the gas station. TONS OF CARS. It was about 5:45 by the time we got there and it was absolutely packed. We decided to still go in anyway just for kicks, but figured we probably wouldn't stay to get the TV.

We got in the front doors and there was just a jam of people as far as I could see. Shopping carts and people (most of whom looked like they had been up since 3am - looking a little trashy but I guess I couldn't talk since I didn't shower either). We got in about 10 feet (literally, we couldn't get any further) and decided to call it quits. It was not worth saving even $100 on a TV if it was this crowded. They probably didn't even have the television left anyway. We turned around to leave and realized we were stuck! More people and more shopping carts had come in behind us and there was no moving in this crowd - everyone trying to go in different directions and no one could get anywhere. It was absolute insanity. My mom started pointing and calling people out "Excuse me, I'm claustrophobic, will you move so I can get out?" and pushed their cart out of our way. I think if we had been 10lb heavier we would have had no chance!

I seriously question the intelligence of the people in that store, standing there like cattle with one or two little things in their cart. The "deals" are NOT that good. Seriously. I can see how a frenzied crowd could get dangerous, though, so I'm glad we didn't stay in there.

So, we did what seemed most logical: we went to the mall. It actually was a good idea because there was even more parking and more stores for people to spread out a little. We did a good bit of damage at the mall and got quite a few presents. We actually strolled through Sears and realized they had a better TV on sale for only $2 more than the Walmart one! So my mom stood in line for only about 10 minutes and got us a TV and found a DVD player for $15! Yeah Christmas!

Another great deal was at Dicks - I got a new winter coat (instead of my HUGE yellow one that's getting a little old, and yellow) and we got some Nike shoes for one of our "giving tree" kids (a 17yo boy named "Mondo") and the shoes were only $28 (every other pair was at least $70!) AND since we spent over $100 and I got a North Face jacket we got a $20 Gift card to Dicks and a $15 iTunes gift card. We also found Mondo a regularly $40 shirt for $6 at Macy's.

Next, we headed to Panera after 9 and got some breakfast, although I really wanted a turkey sandwich and soup (I'd been up for over 4 hours, it was almost lunchtime for me!).

Of course, after that it was a little later and we decided to go back to Walmart. Yea, we're morons. Anyway, it had cleared out quite a bit by that point (all the good sales had been sold out) and we got a few things (including another turkey to make for dinner tonight to eat with the leftovers) and called it a day.

We got home around 11am and I sort of didn't know what to do with myself. Now I think I'm just getting the beginnings of a cold. I should probably take some Airborne or Zicam, but really I just want to go to sleep. Yessss, sleep.