How I Spent My Time Off

So Thanksgiving weekend worked a little like this:


Wednesday Night: The roommate, Alice, baked pies. I made cheeseballs and rolls. Basically, I made the hugest batch of cheeseball-goo (yes, that is the official term) ever and it ended up being enough for a cheeseball at home, a massive cheeseball for my parents' Thanksgiving dinner and a more reasonable sized cheeseball for Alice's parents' Thanksgiving lunch.





My sister, W, and her two kiddos "Bug" and "Bud" spent the night.




Thursday we made breakfast then headed first to Alice's parents. You can see pictures and a post here.

Then we headed to my family's party. Now, let me preface this by telling you a little bit about my family. First of all, you know how most people have the good sense to say "It starts at 6" but everybody really knows that things start cracking around 6:30-ish. Well, not my family. In my family if they say it starts at 6 two of my siblings show up at 5:30 and if you aren't there until 6:30 then you've missed the whole thing. Well, my absent-minded-aging-I'm-hoping-she-didn't-have-an-agenda-with-this-action-mother informed both my sister, W, and me, that the thing started at 6. And she told everybody else that it started at 5. Lucky for us they at least didn't start putting things away until after we ate something. That was nice of them.

At 12:01 AM Friday morning, a local mall opened its doors for the start of black Friday. First off, let me tell you that I don't trust in "crowd mentality." By crowd mentality I mean that COMPETITION + SALES + SLEEP DEPRIVATION + ADOLESCENT "WHERE ELSE CAN I GO THANKSGIVING NIGHT" LOITERING = PANDOMONIUM. MAYHEM. CHAOS. My niece and sister joined Alice and myself for a night of sale shopping. We thought it was a great plan. We thought--"ooooh...how fun, lots of crazy sale-shopping moms in their cozy public pajamas getting deals." Wrong. What were we thinking--I'm just saying that the least common denominator tends to come out after midnight. I'm just saying that after the late movie got out, Aerpostale and American Eagle Outfitters were maybe thinking about hiring a bouncer for the holidays. There were lines to get in to the stores. It was crazy.

So after all that craziness and making our purchases at the fabulous "buy one get one free" Lane Bryant sale, we thought maybe a quiet sit down girl talk session at the food court was in order. Afterall, that 5 (or maybe 6...jury's still out) o'clock dinner was hours ago. Chick-Fil-A sounded in order. We wove our way through the crowds to the food court, clinging to one another's coats. We sat down with our chicken sandwiches and waffle fries. And what do we witness at the table RIGHT NEXT TO OUR OWN--

Thug #1: #@$! #$**#% **!)#!# @$% #^$%& %@# BLEEP your BLEEP @!#$# !@#@$%#@%@ ~!##%@#!@# BLEEP

Thug #2: (As he holds Thug #1 by the throat into the fake topiary display) You wanna look at me that way again you !@#@! !@#$#@%@&&%##@@! @#$@%!#$#@$@^ BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP!?!

And the "conversation" went on from there. W, the sister, panicked and called 911--which only resulted in a failed call (that doesn't seem safe). Alice went and grabbed security who was possibly a bit overwhelmed and focused on potential shoplifters. The "conversation" was broken up and taken into custody. We finished our waffle fries and decided that our lives were more valuable than cheap anti-bacterial soap from Bath & Body Works.

Proceed to a 2 hour nap at home. Then at 4 AM we hit JC Penney. Okay, so I did find some cute stuff at 50% off. But after standing in line in the lingerie department for 25 minutes staring at the same santa-inspired negligee, including hat, only to be told that the register was having trouble and I should possibly find another line, I put my stuff down, told my shopping party this was ridiculous, went and dropped the sister, W, off at Toys R Us so that she could stand in line for nearly 2 hours, and headed to the 6 am opening of Target. Which leads me to this conclusion: Target has the good sense to open at an hour at which most hoodlums are either asleep or too intoxicated to make it. Target has plenty of its sale items on display in fire-inspection-safe spaces sans potential death by trampling. From now on I'm sticking with Target on Black Friday...after a decent night of sleep. Target also had these little items on sale:




Which between catching up on sleep and doing laundry, has been pretty much what I've done with my time since the sleep deprived, confusing dream that was Black Friday. Here's to Target and The Office. Oh, and MY LIFE which has been spared for now!

What about you? Any adventures in Black Friday shopping? Anybody else witness a fight or perhaps get in one themselves?