Midnight Adventure

We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home. (And, yes, Farrah, Thanksgiving Day was my birthday.) It turned out to be one of the times where it didn’t work out for us to go anywhere or have anyone over, so it was just our immediate family. Still, we have our children and our health and far more blessings than we deserve, so we have much to be thankful for. (Oh, yes. And my dear friend Farrah. She’s a blessing, too. In case you don’t know why I’m mentioning Farrah, you’ll have to read her comments on my last post.)

The girls wanted to fix a nice turkey dinner with all the trimmings, including 3 kinds of pie! So we enjoyed our dinner. We also watched the Macy’s parade, played a game of Life, took naps, and just generally relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company.

Then Mama had a not-so-bright idea that the rest of the family readily agreed to. In retrospect I should have just kept my mouth shut. But no. I had gotten a sale flyer in the mail that Kohl’s would be open at midnight Thanksgiving night and they had coats for 70% off. Both girls and Lyle were needing coats. I also noticed that my favorite coffee kiosk was going to be open all night. So wouldn’t it be a fun family adventure, I thought, to go out at midnight and get coffee or cocoa then make a quick Kohl’s run before heading home to bed? Surely most of the Black Friday shoppers would wait until morning to hit the stores. I didn’t figure very many people would be crazy enough to go out in the middle of the night.

Boy, was I wrong.

As we passed Target I was utterly shocked to see that the parking lot was full-to-overflowing and the line at the door stretched along the building and all the way down the side of the parking lot. Traffic on the highway was like a major ballgame had just got out or something. Best Buy was the same scenario. I was ready to turn around and go home right then. I couldn’t believe it when we got to Kohl’s and found the same thing going on there.

I did refuse to stand in line to get in the store, so we waited in the warm car until the doors opened and then went in the door where the line wasn’t. Oh, the pushing and shoving and snatching and grabbing… and wall-to-wall people! It was a mad house. We made our way to the men’s coat department and spent some time deciding on a coat for Lyle– then to the women’s coat department and deliberated over the choices for the girls.

Let’s just take our time, I thought, and let the crowd thin out a bit before we try to check out. Again, I was so very wrong. By the time we had made our selections and were more than ready to go, the checkout lines had stretched to the back of the store on both sides (2 lines, one for each side of the store, with 6 cashiers each) and the lines met in the middle of the back of the store.

Lyle and the girls got in line and I went to look at socks “real quick.” Even in the sock department people were pushing and shoving to get through. I was standing about a foot away from a rack of socks examining the display when a young man elbowed his way through between me and the rack. I was just appalled at the lack of common courtesy. At least the other people pushed through behind me and most said, “Excuse me.”

I chose my socks and went to get in line with my family. We sent the girls on out to the car where they could be comfortable while we waited. By the time we got the check stand we had waited in line for a full hour.

I was so traumatized!

We got what we went after at a really good price– and I can now say that I’ve experienced Black Friday shopping.

But. Never again!