Tales From Black Friday & Beyond

Those of you who know me well know that I was born with a birth defect. I am a guy that likes to shop. That's one of the reasons that I look forward to Black Friday. However, I got a jump on things this year. I went out on Gray Thursday.

While my wife was showering, I made a run over to a local general store and snagged some great deals. After we had our Thanksgiving, and were heading home, I dropped my wife off at the house and went out to K store for some items that I saw in the paper, Barbie dolls. Not just any Barbies, but Disney princess Barbies (The Girl is really into princesses right now and if I can get them at $3.99, I'm going to do it.)

When I get to the back of the store, the display that held the Barbies was empty. Nuts, I should have left earlier. I figured I'd take a look at the other Barbie princess dolls (the deluxe ones that weren't on sale) and see if there was anything in my price range. While searching the regular Barbie aisle, I spotted  what looked like one of the dolls I saw in the ad paper. I picked it up and continued searching. On another shelf, I spotted another one. After making sure there were no more, I went to the price scanner to verify that these were the dolls that were on sale. BOOP $3.99 YEEEESSS!!

After getting the dolls, I got a couple other items and headed up front to check out. I think every person in central Ohio was waiting in line. I decided to head over to electronics and check out there. Big mistake. i couldn't even get up the aisle that led to electronics. So back to the front I go. When I get there, I'm behind a wife & husband that's undecided about their purchases. She sends him back to toys to get a different doll. he sends her to get a sweater. Once he told her that he was heading to electronics to check out the DVDs. I told him that he needed to stop at hardware first to get a crowbar so he could get in to electronics.

I stood in that line for a long time with little movement while watching the next line over move at a fairly brisk pace. I told myself, "Stay where you are." Watching that line move got the best of me. I moved to the other lane. Everyone knows when you move to the other lane, it will slow down and the line you were in will move faster. That's exactly what happened. I think the guy at the head of the line I was in was buying explosives or guns and was undergoing a background check. After waiting an hour to check out, I was on my way back home. It was 11:30 PM.

The alarm went off at 5AM to do more shopping on Friday. The Ogre stopped by, dropped off the kids and away we went. The first store we hit I was hoping to score an $8 crock pot but wound up holding The ogres purchases instead because there were 2 crock pots in the store.After hitting a couple of smaller stores, we ventured back to K store. The great crowds had dispersed and we were in & out in 10 minutes with the items we were seeking.

The Ogre needed some toys for gifts so we hit a BOGO toy sale then went out for breakfast.Since the buffet closed, we went to a different restaurant (we have gone to the buffet for many years). At breakfast, everyone that ordered an entree got a free $5 gift certificate. Cool.

After breakfast, we downloaded my stuff from the car to the house and set off for Columbus.The Ogre wanted to stop at JoMungus fabric store. Once we got there, I went to get a number for the cutting table. A lady that didn't want to wait offered me hers. it was 43. I looked up at the sign and it said "Now serving 54". Did I miss something? No. We had to go all the way to 99 and start over to get to 43. The ogre said to ask for a number from the employee handing them out, so I did and got a 50. We kept the 43 and gave the 50 to a lady who came in after we did. I wandered around, picked up a gift and went back over to wait with my daughter. We waited for two hours, but she got over $100 of material for $30.

After stops for lunch & the mall (which wasn't as crowded as we anticipated) we headed home. By the time we got home, we had been out for 12 hours.