I survived Black Friday shopping!

I made the mistake of napping yesterday afternoon. It was lovely at the time, but it prevented me from falling asleep once the kidlets were all in bed for the evening. I suppose it was under the same principle that makes drinking coffee in the afternoon a bad idea even when you're tired and feel you need it at the time. Regardless, it meant that I was fairly bleary-eyed when I staggered out the door to begin Black Friday shopping.

I arrived at the first store about three minutes before they opened at midnight. The line stretched for what seemed to be miles out the door. In reality, once those doors opened, I was inside and actively shopping within five minutes. A lot of stores opened at midnight this year, which I suppose meant people had to pick and choose which ones to hit first. I wonder if that helped or hindered with the crowds.

This was the first year in my nine years of Black Friday shopping in which gloves, a hat, a scarf, and a hot beverage in a thermal mug were not necessities of life. There is quite a difference between waiting outside in twenty-degree weather and forty-degree weather. I much prefer the latter to the former. I did not even need to zip up my coat upon leaving the first store at 12:38AM.

My second attempted store did not go nearly as smoothly. That store had opened at either 9:00PM or 10:00PM on Thanksgiving evening, and had apparently reached it's maximum capacity at some point thereafter. The line to enter its doors still stretched along the whole front of the building. I decided that my current level of heartburn was not conducive to even attempting to enter that store.

I wound up going into one more store which was open and had no waiting lines. I did not expect to purchase anything there, but managed to surprise myself when I saw something on my list. The fact that it was even cheaper than the advertised sale price in the store with the insane line out in front made it that much sweeter. I love it when I can make purchases at stores where I would not normally expect to find particular items. It's like going into a hardware store and coming out with affordable fine China.

After a quick drive-by near another store with a crazy maxed out capacity line, I decided that sleep was more important than dealing with such lunacy.

After a nice few hours of sleep, I headed out once more to hit the mall and a couple of other stores near it. Surprisingly, at almost nine in the morning, there were plenty of parking spaces, fewer people shopping than I would typically expect to see on a weekend, and in my favorite mall store (The Lego store! Huzzah!), there were more employees than people shopping, so I was able to commandeer an employee to help me shop. After the mall, I went to the same store I could not enter at 1:00AM, and found a similar lack of shoppers. I adopted a nice, leisurely pace and soon had the bulk of my shopping finished. I think my new favorite time to hit the stores on Black Friday is after the sun comes up and all of the die-hard shoppers have returned to their beds.

After a nap this afternoon, I feel almost human again, too. I just hope I shall be able to sleep once the kidlets are in bed this evening. At least there is no midnight sale for me to attend tonight!