My sons and husband are currently watching the Buckeye/Michigan game. Watching football to me is on par with watching 4 hours of CSPAN. I don’t understand it, I don’t want to understand it and I have no desire to watch. Instead, I will tell you how I took my son out for his first time shopping Black Friday Eve. Side note: I estimate I saved 1.6 million dollars shopping on Black Friday eve.
THE BLACK FRIDAY PADAWAN
P wanted to come with me. He was curious and I was willing to show him “the way”. I was the teacher, he was my padawan. Here is a photo of us right before we headed out to the nightmare known as Walmart. 
“Hey, since we are doing this, I want to have a conversation with you. You know the whole thing with Santa, right?” I asked, praying he truly didn’t believe in Santa so I wasn’t the ass hole that ruined it for him.
“Yeah,” P said knowing this was THAT conversation.
“When did you know?”
“‘Bout last year, right before Thanksgiving,” he admitted.
“Ok, don’t tell your brother or I’ll ground you for life.”
“Copy that,” he said, somewhat sarcastically.
THE WALMART
We arrived at “The Walmart” around 6:30. It felt like 11:30.
“Should we get a basket?” P asked.
“Nah, there are no baskets on black Friday. Besides, we don’t want to be those people that can’t maneuver the aisles because of basket,” I said strongly. He didn’t argue.
“Ok, so what should we go for first?” I asked P.
“My video game,” he blurted out as if he knew the question was coming.
So we headed over to the electronic section to find a notice on the video game windows stating video games were temporarily in the dairy aisle. This made complete sense as this was Walmart.
P and I jetted over to the grocery area. First we passed the meat area ducking under caution tapes. It was completely empty and IÂ didn’t know if we were taking the proper route. Upon arrival into the dairy area there was caution tape blocking off red cardboard displays of hundreds of video games. A few people were browsing and a cop watching over the area. Eureka as the area was totally dead! Probably because it was in the dairy aisle and no one knew it was here. Now it made sense. I thought the cop was playing double duty as the cop and an associate getting you what game you wanted.
“Hi, yeah, can I please have Fifa 17 and Rainbow Six?” I asked Officer Walmart.
“Mam, the line is over there,” he said annoyed, pointing to the liquor area. Obviously I wasn’t the first dumb ass not to realize this wide open area was too good to be true.
The line snaked in and out of the liquor and beverage aisles then snaked over through the 4 snack aisles. This was all just to get a game that we weren’t even guaranteed would be available once we got to the tiny little area. The ad said MINIMUM OF 3 under the game my son was searching for.
After about 20 minutes in line I heard,
“Then you be dichin.”
“This is where they told us to go,” I heard a hillbilly say. A small section of the line in front of us began to argue. Apparently the flow of the line was messed up and there were 2 lines now feeding into 1. I looked at my son proudly.
“This is what I explained to you would happen,” I said. “There always tends to be some sort of argument on Black Friday. Now, since I don’t want you to get knifed and we don’t even know if they are going to have the game, I think we need to head on over to Target.”
P was disappointed but he understood the train wreck we were currently in.
TARGET
Fortunately Target is right across the street from Walmart. We weren’t even in the parking lot for a solid minute until another fight broke out.
We were about 3 cars back from turning to go into another row when I saw the white reverse lights illuminate on an SUV. The SUV began to slowly pull out.
‘He’s going to hit that car,’ I thought in the same sense of urgency I have when I’m thinking that I have to shave . It all happened in slow mo and in retrospect I probably should have honked my horn. I didn’t and the car was hit, just 2 up from me. Immediately a girl probably in her twenties with her hair piled on top of her head, a zip up sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, hops out of the car and begins screaming at the SUV as the owner hadn’t even gotten out yet.
“What the hell?” She screamed. “You just hit my car! You didn’t even look!”
“I’m sorry,” the tall thin man said, now standing at the side of the car.
“Your sorry? Your sorry? That’s my fuckin’ car!” She blurted out, just inches from the man’s torso. By now the granny of the McCoy clan got out to watch.
Lolita did not back down and I seriously thought she was going to deck him. It would have to happen with her left hand though. As the classy lady she seemed to be, she firmly held on to a Virginia Slim with her other hand.
Cars began to honk now, annoyed we weren’t moving. Like anyone born over the last 25 years, P did what anyone would do. He pulled out his phone and began to record the altercation.
“Put it down,” I said not taking my eyes off the argument. “We don’t need her beating us up too.” P put the phone down.
After Target and finding his game, I drove him back home. I wasn’t done. In fact, I shopped till about 2 a.m. It did begin to weigh on my though when I spent about 30 minutes in line at Old Navy.
So who else went out and shopped on Thanksgiving or Black Friday? What was your best deal you found?
Not me. I don’t miss the hassle. Wal-mart was always crazy.
Yes, it’s basically a civil form of looting.
I admire your courage. I’m 63 and I have shopped once on Black Friday…….. during the late 1970’s when people still had some respect for themselves and each other. That experience was traumatic enough I never went again.
Now my Black Friday is spent watching the adventures of other shoppers on the nightly news.
Great post, thank you for sharing.
Thanks for stopping by Ann! Sometimes I get bored and think, ‘why aren’t I just doing all of this online?’ But then I think how excited my 12-year-old is to experience it so at least this year, I’ll do it again but maybe next year, I may just go online for hours. You need to go to your local Walmart, grab some pop corn and enjoy all the hot messes around you! LOL!
What an adventure! I think this is why I don’t go to any stores on Black Friday. I feel like normally kind people kinda lose their minds and I’d rather believe that shopping doesn’t cause temporary insanity. But wow!
But the hot messes are simply breathtaking! It’s worth the people watching!
True–but at a distance. 🙂
Ok, well I might do a live Facebook feed of Walmart at midnight so you can sit on your sofa and enjoy the disasters I encounter! LOL!
PLEASE! That would be awesome.
As long as no one throat punches me for doing it! Lol!
Black Friday is a crazy myth to me, it blows my mind!! Our equivalent is Boxing Day, that’s when people get up and stand in line for whatever crazy deal happens to be on, but people never line at midnight (like I’ve heard for Black Friday) and there aren’t really fights. I’m impressed with you braving the storm!!
OMG! I am out on Thanksgiving evening. My husband and I once sat in line at Walmart for 5 hours to get a 60″ flat screen, which we were successful in acquiring. Check out this site, it shows how amazing the deals are: https://bestblackfriday.com/ they post the fliers ahead of time. It’s totally worth it in my mind.
This sounds like madness, but I’m glad you got what you wanted! Can you cheat and buy things online so you don’t have to interact with all the mad people? Or are the crazy people part of the fun!?
Crazy people are part of the fun! I’m half tempted to do a life Facebook feed from Walmart at midnight my time. How hilarious would that be?
See, I never find this kind of drama on Black Friday. I’ve only ever found people to be excited about getting presents for loved ones and occasionally surprised that so many other people have heard about the sales. ONCE someone bitched about a long line, but she wasn’t in it—I was at Ulta, and in her defense, they had no business pulling some Black Friday shit in the world’s smallest Ulta. The line for the register stretched all the way to the front door, ffs. No room to shop. It was pure bullshit, and if I hadn’t been out of dry shampoo (and trapped!) I’d have left without buying anything.
Have you ever gone to “The Walmart” at midnight of Black Friday? It’s magical and filled with the hayseeds of the Earth. People’s animal like instincts come out and I wouldn’t be surprised if some don’t get the urge to piss around an X Box. Don’t worry, I’ll have a full report of my shenanigans and I’m tossing around the idea of a live Facebook feed.
If not live, at least vlog the highlights. No more of this “don’t film, we don’t want to make it worse” bs.
Preach! I think the key is to tell them they will be on a blog. They’ll think they’ll be famous, even though that’s sooo far from the truth. Everyone wins and my ass isn’t beaten. Win win.