Dark Friday

There is nothing that I need badly enough to sleep outside for on a freezing, November night in Illinois. Well, maybe a year of free Chick-Fil-A, but even that one is questionable. A TV? No way, Jose.

If you're one of those crazies people that enjoy a good Black Friday adventure, more power to you. I hope you were successful in your endeavors and made it through the night/morning without any injury or assault. Me and my pillow cheered you on from a far.

Sure, I've ventured out one time in the wee morning hours on a Black Friday once just to see what the hype was all about, and although it was fun for a few hours, once was quite enough for this gal. I can still remember standing in a line outside of Michaels at 4am with my friend while nervous energy coursed through my veins as we waited for the doors to swing open wide and let us in for the pickin'. Looking back on that morning, I find myself asking many questions, but the most prominent one would be "why on earth was I in line at Michael's of all places?!" I walked out of there with a bag full of fake flowers and thought I was a one cool chick. I kept thinking to myself "do you know how money I just saved!!" There are many things wrong with that thought process in hindsight, but a few off the top of my head would be 1) I hate fake flowers. They have to be REALLY good (and I mean REALLY good) for me to utilize a fake floral. That bag contained ZERO good ones. 2) Why did I wake up at 3am and brave the crowds for stupid, fake flowers? 3) Why did I have nervous energy coursing through my veins as I stood outside of a craft store? What the what? Again, it's just all kinds of wrong.

Our next stop...Target. The mecca of Black Friday chaos. I can still remember to this day, grown women running to the DVD aisle caps for their $4 movie deals. So what did I do? Duh! I ran with them. Was there a single movie that I NEEDED to purchase, even at the bargain price of $4? He@# no. But you bet your bottom dollar that I snagged up about 3 movies that I could've cared less about. But friends, they were $4! Lame, I know. At least I got $.75 for them at my garage sale, right?

My second purchase at that shiny, happy store at 5:30am? An electronic dart board for $4.99. S-C-O-R-E! Guess how many times I played that thing? T-W-O. Yep, two times. That's only one more time than one. So worth the money right? Nope. But I still remember snatching that thing up from the shelf like it was a Tickle Me Elmo circa 1997. I blame it on mob mentality. It had to be. They probably could've been selling poo in a bag tied with a pretty, glittery ribbon for $.99 and people would've pushed and shoved for that dang poo. And you know what, I might've been right behind them thinking "Oh no, there's only 4 bags of glitter poo left and 5 people in front of me. Go, go, go! Must. Get. Poo. NNNOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!"

From that dark Friday on, I've done my best to stay home or at the very least, wait until the those die hard Black'ers are done and finally crashing into their new $3.99 (with a $2 mail in rebate) Christmas flannel sheets that they stood outside for until their runny noses turned into snot-cicles. Until there's something that I cannot live without, which will most likely be never, I shall sleep my way through Black Friday and keep my dignity and wallet in check.

Anything you just couldn't live without this season? Do tell!