Friday, November 28, 2014

11/28/2014 Black Friday Shopping

(Arizona City, AZ)

I am so not a Black Friday shopper.  Of course my friend Bonnie and I had great plans of getting up early and hitting the stores by eight for the early bird specials but that didn’t happen.  See, I told you I wasn’t a Black Friday shopper.  We moseyed on into town around ten.  First stop was Kohl’s.  The parking lot didn’t seem terribly crowded and we thought, “Wow, this is going to be a piece of cake.  In, out, on to the next store!”  NOT!  There must have a fleet of buses around back that we didn’t see.  Oh Em Gee, where did these people come from?

Bonnie and I decided to go our separate ways as she had pre-teens to shop for and I didn’t.  First stop for me was the Ladies Department.  I stood at the perimeter and looked in at all the people standing shoulder to shoulder and decided I’d come back to that department.  Next on my list was the men’s department.  Hmmm…going in there would be like taking my life in my hands.  I decided I’d come back to that department.  Big & Tall, only a handful of people in this section and I have two sons who fall into this department.  I found what I wanted and made my way back to the toy department.  This wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be but I didn’t find what I wanted.  Little girls department was next and while it was crowded I wasn’t intimidated.  Everyone looked calm and I wasn’t hearing any screams of “I saw it first, give it to me!”  I quickly found a couple of outfits for our granddaughter, on sale no less, and I slipped quietly back out to the aisle way.

Ahhh,,,the aisle way.  Why do retailers insist on putting rack after rack of merchandise in the middle of the aisle?  There’s a gazillion shoppers and a bazillion shopping carts and we’re all vying for space in the aisle dodging racks of bear claw slippers,  the latest in kitchen gadgets and celebrity perfumes by the dozens.  I mean really!  If I want bear claw slippers I’ll go to the shoe department.  If I just have to have the newest perfume by the latest celebrity who thought she could come up with a better smelling perfume than Estee Lauder then I’ll go to the perfume department.  Leave the aisle space alone!  Every square inch of it is needed on Black Friday.

I was finally done all I needed to get in this store.  I called Bonnie to see how far along she was and she too was done.  We agreed to meet at the registers.  We got there at the same time from opposite ends of the store and we noticed that the registers were all roped off and a pretty big guy from the store was directing the check out traffic.  We started following the line of those waiting to fork over their cash and we walked and we walked and we walked some more before we finally got to the end of the line.  This is going to take forever we said!  We debated on putting our stuff back (read that as walking away from our carts)  and going home or waiting it out. We decided to wait it out.  After all, we had hit some good sales, the people in our immediate area were all laughing and talking with each other so we thought the time would pass quickly.  And it did.  We probably waited about 35 minutes in line but we joined in on the conversations around us and it wasn’t bad at all.  And we got Kohl’s cash!

Our bags stashed in the back of the car we sat in the front seats and decided where to go next.  Home.  Let’s go home.  This isn’t fun.  We’ll shop again next week when everyone will be at work or at school.

I’m so not a Black Friday Shopper!



 

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