Hello, Moonbats. I now have Black Friday 2011 under my belt, and thought I'd share musings and observations with you. It's always an interesting day that gives lots of topics for conversation - sometimes profane, sometimes profound, and sometimes just plain funny. This year was no exception.
Years ago, when I first started doing Black Friday shopping, we didn't call it Black Friday - at least not around here we didn't. We just called it the day after Thanksgiving, as in "I'm hitting the day after Thanksgiving sales." I have to admit Black Friday is less of a mouthful. Also, the sales usually started at 6:00 a.m. A few stores opened at 5:00 a.m. and often I'd see the same people at the 6:00 store that I saw at the 5:00 store. All of the stores had goodies to give out to the first x number of shoppers. The number varied from store to store, but was usually either 500 or 1,000. The goodies were also good. One year Target gave out Tweety Bird tote bags with sample sizes of shampoo, lotion, conditioner and things like that. The Fruit Bat (aka the daughter) was about 5 years old, so that goodie got wrapped up and put under the tree for her. Same thing with the Elmo cookie tin K-Mart was giving away. Several years back, the stores started opening earlier, the goodies went away, and I'm not sure about the calibre of the bargains. If you're looking for electronics, they're fantastic. If you're looking for other things, they're still worth getting up early, but hang back a bit and let the electronics shoppers do their grab.
I dickered and debated going to the midnight sales. Actually, it would have been a 10:00 p.m. Thanksgiving night sale at Wal-Mart. Then I decided that no, I would not do that. First off, I think it's pretty chicken shit of Wally World to decide to open at 10:00 Thanksgiving night just to outdo Target by a couple of hours. I mean, goddamn, how much money do the Wal-Mart heads need? The employees probably had to come in a 3:00 a.m. to open at 5:00 a.m.; opening the store any earlier than that robs the workers of their Thanksgiving. Same thing for Target opening at midnight. Christ in a shopping cart, let your employees have Thanksgiving. On the other side of that coin, I didn't particularly care for the Target employee complaining about it to me, especially since I didn't get to Target until 8:00 a.m. I sympathize with you, but dude, inappropriate. More on that later.
The first stop was Sears. I haven't shopped at Sears in forever, but I did today. It was pleasant. The store opened at 4:00 a.m., but I didn't get there until 6:00. The bed was just too comfortable to get up any earlier. They have shopping carts now! They didn't have those the last time I was there. I told you it had been forever. The employees were very friendly and helpful and all of the shoppers were happy. There were two items I was there to get. One was a camera bundle for me, and the other was something for the Fruit Bat. I can't tell you what it is until Christmas lest the Fruit Bat tune into the Bark. We'll just say that what I saved on that paid for the camera bundle. Since I was there and had saved so much money and needed to spend another $10 to use my $10 off coupon, I decided to get myself some new duds.
Next stop, Park Plaza Mall to hit Bath & Body Works. I have a love/hate relationship with this particular mall. It has some cool stores, and there's a Chinese food place in the food court that has no MSG food and wonderful sweet tea. It's convenient to my office, so it's easy to grab & go with some good lunch. Those are it's good points. The bad points? Dillards. Dillards sucks ass. I noticed a pair of old whores going into Dillards as I was leaving the mall, and it's all I could do to keep from running over them. I say old whores - I doubt they're actually whores, just bitches. These 50-something bitches who are more than likely on a first-name basis with numerous plastic surgeons were at one time young whores who thought Dillards was the shit. I don't know the attitude about Dillards outside Arkansas, but here...balls, dude. It's an Arkansas corporation, thus Arkansans get all braggy about it. The shoppers are all rich bitches who tend to look down their noses at others and chose friends based on tax brackets. There's something about old ladies and Dillards around here. They hang out at Dillards until they're too feeble, then they go to the nursing home and their daughters go to Dillards for them. The people who work there tend to look down their noses at bargain shoppers. If they stayed within the confines of Dillards, I'd have no problem with them. However, between dealing with the feeble old biddies in big-assed cars in the parking lot and the aging former beauty queens in track suits wandering aimlessly throughout the mall, I hate them. Fuck Dillards and fuck their shoppers.
Now that I've flipped a verbal bird at Dillards and its aficionados, it's time to give you a chuckle at my expense. Traffic was awful getting in the front entrance of the mall, so I went in the back way. Coming in that way, you're on the top of the parking deck, which is the third floor of the mall. I go in the mall and head in the direction of Bath & Body Works only to be horrified to see a Payless Shoes where BBW should be. WTF? Where is my beloved BBW? How will I ever smell good again in 127 years when I finally use up and/or give away all of the BBW products I already have? Then I look down at the lower floor thinking I'll get a cuppa joe in the food court when I realize that I'm on the THIRD floor and BBW is one floor down. Duh. I'm blonde, alright. I thought the top of the deck was at the second floor level of the mall. At any rate, I shall now not stink for 131 years unless I choose to do so, and then I will still have a flowery funk about myself.
Oh, yeah, going into Park Plaza I had the misfortune of getting behind a minivan plastered with jebus stickers, one of which proclaimed "real women pray." Oooooookaaaaaay. We'll bark about this next bark, but for today, back to the retail revelry recap.
The next stop was Walgreens, or as I call it Wags. Again, I can't say enough nice things about the hired help, especially the cashier in the cosmetics section. Often, cashiers will cringe at coupon shoppers (no, I'm not an extreme couponer - just a bargain hound), but she helped me find the items that had register rewards that I couldn't find and seemed to enjoy seeing how much we could get off the bill with the coupons. No, I didn't get $1,000 worth of stuff for $1; but I did alright.
Next stop Gordman's. Holy mother of balls, that place was PACKED. I should have turned around, but noooo, must plod on. Gordman's doesn't have anything special - it's mostly cheap clothes and knick-knacky type stuff, but they have a nice selection of jeans in my size and cheap. I would like to know who the skinny bitch is who thinks it's funny to put size 2 clothes in with the women's sizes. Fuck you, you skinny skank. I hope your gut gets so big your brotherboyfriend can't find your cooter underneath it. Then let's see how funny you think that shit is. Bitch. Anyway, the checkout line snakes from the back of the store up to the front, and nifty little impulse buys are strategically placed throughout the store. I put more in my cart after I got in line than while I was technically shopping. Interestingly, the line snaked through the lingerie section. One rack in particular caught my eye - teeny tiny little lace thongs. My first thought was that anyone with an ass small enough to fit in that is way too young to be wearing it. My next thought was WTF. If you're going to wear that, why not just go commando? Maybe it's just me, but the thought of a teeny tiny tight little piece of butt floss digging in my ass all day just doesn't make me feel pretty. Of course the line also snaked past the jewelry. Add a few more xmas presents for from me into the cart. Thankfully, nothing else begged to go home with me before I got to the cashier. Time to take my merchandise and head to Garden Ridge.
Garden Ridge is always fun. It's filled with lots of frou-frou stuff that nobody needs but that for some reason makes you think your life won't be complete without it. I love to oooh and aaaah at everything in the store. They had a Beyonce metal chicken! I didn't get it, though, because it had sharp edges and with the Baby Bat just learning to walk, it just didn't seem like a good idea. It took me the better part of an hour to find about four things I just couldn't live without and head to the checkout.
All damage having been done, I headed back home to treat myself to Thanksgiving leftovers and decking the halls with tacky tinsel.
