Reflections on a Neutral Black Friday
Black Friday is here and gone, with one person reportedly trampled and killed. I’ve never seen a line get that out of control yet, but then again, we’re in Iowa, and a lot of Iowan’s are still halfway polite. Anyway! In the past, we’ve had a ginormous list of items we’ve needed, but this year was different. The deals on stuff that we needed just weren’t good enough to justify purchasing them. D said, “Most of these things have been priced better online! I’ve seen (item) for much less than what (big box store) has it listed for in their BF ad.”
My mom finally made it out to her very first Black Friday. I’ve been begging her for the last few years to come and experience the early-morning madness. I think it was the threat of, “This could be the last Black Friday we do here if we move far away.” D, D’s li’l sis, and I stood in line for about 20 minutes at the local Home Depot. We even had our photo taken by the paper, I think! Our deals there were a 6 gallon pancake air compressor for $99 and a really nice miter saw stand for $99. With the three of us hunting for the items on our shopping list, we were out of the store in 15 minutes! D’s sis only hit one person in the head this year! (The guy actually ran into the saw stand sticking out of the cart).
D dropped me off at Kohl’s where I met my mom at about 6:30am. The traffic inside was moderate, probably since they had already been open for over two hours. I wanted to check out the bathroom accessories at 60% off since we’re redecorating. I couldn’t be more disappointed when I found the set I wanted, the only set that would match our bathroom floor, was picked over. Only chipped pieces remained. Finding Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (at a fantastic price) for my sister’s birthday more than made up for it. Since it was Mom’s first BF, we took our time sifting through bargains and people watching.
After Kohl’s, Mom and I took a brisk walk to Old Navy, which was chaotic! I’ve never seen so many people shopping for clothes! The racks and shelves were disastrous. We were starting to feel claustrophobic from the messes everywhere and decided to head to Barnes and Noble, Mom’s favorite store. BN was open early and slightly busy, but had NO deals! I asked the customer service rep if they had any specials going on and he replied, “Nothing special, just our member discounts.” That didn’t stop my mom from purchasing her weekly magazine quota.
Since my sister’s going through some tough times, and her soon-to-be-ex-husband is wanting all of his kitchen stuff back, which is pretty much everything, she’s going to need dishes and a cookware set. So if she’s reading this, she knows what she’s getting for Christmas. We drug ourselves to JCPenney’s to search for deals and found some! The cookware was originally $150 and after the Friday deals and rebate, will only cost us $50. The dishes were originally $40, and after the Friday deals and rebate, will only cost $10 per set… so Mom purchased two.
The early morning was really wearing on Mom, so I took her home. Knowing that if I took a nap, I would be asleep the rest of the day, I headed back out to look for my niece’s gift. I stopped at the best possible place to find anything similar to bristle blocks – Toys ‘R’ Us. Wow… what a mess. I’m glad I visited at 2pm instead of when they opened. Even at two, they were utterly understaffed. The store was still busy and I only counted two employees on the floor – neither of them willing to help without me asking first. They didn’t have what I was looking for. The closest thing was Playschool’s Clipo, which has gotten terrible reviews by Amazon users. I found Krinkle’s, a brand of bristle blocks, online for $9.99 plus shipping.
Debating on whether I wanted to go to Gander Mountain, I made an extremely rare visit to Starbuck’s. 14 car-lengths later I had my “tall skinny chai latte!” (They opened at 3am!) I decided Gander wasn’t worth it and I went over to D’s parents to get my luggage out of his car. His sister was heading back to college, so I stayed a while to visit. When I got back around 4pm, I convinced my dad to go get the Christmas décor in the storage garage. A hot chocolate and three hours later, we had the gear all inside at home! There was an 8pm showing of Twilight, and with all the hype, Mom wanted to take me to go see it. My dad’s not much of a movie guy and for my sister – “It’s not my genre,” a phrase she coined from me… lol.
The day definitely had its ups and downs. Hopefully the economy will recover some by next year and the deals will be better.
