The Black Friday Assault

I did what I swore I'd never do again. I did Black Friday.

My first time was last year. I called it Black and Blue Friday, if that gives you an idea of what kind of experience it was.

I wasn't planning on going-- it never even crossed my mind.

That is, until my sisters and mom all started looking at the ads after Thanksgiving dinner. I started to feel a little twinge inside. I can only describe it as similar to what I used to feel before pitching a fast pitch softball game. And then I knew.

Black Friday shopping is a sport.

I was still resisting, until Layne started to make comments about going with me. That has never happened before, and suddenly, a plan was born.

We shipped some kids of to my parents house and left a few home with the oldest cousins. And then the fun began.

Nicole and I were accompanied this year by both of our husbands-- who got progressively funnier and consequently more embarrassing as the night progressed.

Toys R Us was starting their sale at midnight, so we drove over to Orem. So did the rest of Utah Valley. We got there an hour early and the line was already around the block, so we went for plan B. We drove to WalMart and went to scope out the goods there so we'd be ready for our 5 a.m. assault.

In the toys, we found a Lego astronaut. Jared decided to do a little re-arranging of some of his parts. I'm surprised we didn't get kicked out.

That was about 1:00 am. Old Navy didn't open until 3, so we went back to Nicole's house for an hour's rest. I crashed on the couch, while Layne and Jared appropriately enough watched Beavis and Butthead on t.v. Come 2:15 and we were at it again.

Here's the Old Navy line. The first 30 people in line got Lego Rock Band free with a $25 purchase-- it was nuts. There were a lot of crazy teenagers in that line-- I think they might have been the same annoying crowd that was in the vampire movie with us. (I'm absolutely certain my friends and I were not nearly that stupid when we were that age.)

I didn't have anything on my list at Old Navy, so we just helped Nicole. Jared and Layne got in the checkout line first thing. Nicole and I ran around looking for her items and trying to find them before the boys got to the front of the line. We were a well-oiled shopping machine.

Kohl's was next at 4:00. I had a big list here. However, we got there at 3:20 and I was too chicken to stand in the cold for 45 minutes. We decided to chance it and sit in the car until it was almost time. We played Scrabble--I kicked butt.

Kohl's did not go so well. Our gamble cost me, as there was only one thing on my list still there by the time we got in. We also got stuck in line behind two of the dumbest people I've ever met who were trying to get Kohl's credit cards and bounce checks.

After Kohl's, we went to WalMart-- the holy grail of Black Friday. Thanks to our earlier recon, we knew just where to go. They had pallets of the good deals all wrapped in plastic, guarded by unfortunate employees. We all picked an item to stand by and dug in for 45 minutes. At 4:59 by my watch, a bell rang and all hell broke loose.

I was trying to get $7 snow boots, along with all of these people:

I was lucky, and found a pair of size 13 boots for Doug. Without getting mauled. Nicole was not as lucky. She got the games she wanted, but got shoved into a cart in the process. She might get a purple heart. Our husbands muscled their way in for a few MP3 players. Then we all ran for the check out line which looked like this:

We were about 6th in line, thanks to Nicole's mad dash. However, the first person in line was a moron who was actually price checking every item he had. He took FOREVER! When he finally left, our whole line erupted in applause.

We had a frustrating trip to Target-- by far the longest lines of the morning, and then a successful trip to Game Stop where we ran out of energy. And money.

We'd been up for 24 hours, drank nearly a whole case of diet coke and eaten a bag of jerkey for breakfast. (Pause to vomit.) However, we found nearly everything we were looking for and honestly had a great time. Don't know if I'll ever get Layne to go again, though....