Brown Thursday/Black Friday 2011

So last Thanksgiving we were with Husband Man's family, and they usually go to all the Black Friday sales. I had endured 19 1/2 blissful years innocent of the horrors that are Black Friday, since my people don't go to those things. (We're usually holed up in our house, waiting for the storm to pass.)


However, last Thanksgiving Husband Man's mom and older sister pointed out the benefit in going to Black Friday sales so that we could get the things we could really use as newlyweds at a cheaper price, things like Tupperware and dinnerware and sheets and even a few Christmas presents for other family. Subdued, I was taken along to my first Black Friday sale, midnight at the local Walmart.


I don't think I'll ever forget that day. There were people and shopping carts everywhere, filling the aisles of the store. I learned then just how dangerous Black Friday is, and how hard it is to get sheets without dying.


This year, with only last year's first experience under my belt, I was the one that led the expedition into Walmart.


I took two cousins, my foster brother, and my cousin's roommate. None of them had ever gone to a Black Friday sale before. When we got to Walmart, we forced our way through the crowds, trying to find the three things I really wanted to get: movies, sheets, and something else I can't mention. We'll just call it the "ko-ko". (I don't know why I picked that. Just go with it.)


As we go through Wally's, the roommate realised just how serious I was about how vicious things can be at a Walmart Black Friday sale. Originally she was going to go after the sheets, but after seeing the crowd for said sheets, she decided to go after the ko-ko instead. (It helped that I accidentally scored a spot right by the corner of the the ko-ko display.) With half an hour to go until the sale started, we left her by the ko-ko's, and moved on.


The next stop was the movies, since my foster brother and boy-cousin wanted to go after those. We got over there, and left the ad and the list of movies my mom and I wanted with them. My foster brother told me later that he spent the 25 minutes of waiting bargaining with the people around him.


Finally, my girl-cousin and I went to go wait for the sheets. There were two kinds, so she was on one end of the display and I was on the other. There were throngs of people everywhere, and we were all pressed up against each other. The women I was bunched up with chatted and laughed with me, and we all knew what the other wanted. About ten minutes before the sale started, the woman next to me, who had spent the last five or ten minutes prior whipping me in the face with her ponytail, apologized to everyone for anything she might do when the sale started. The woman across the bin from us kept rifling through the 600-thread sheets. The guy with the scissors started pushing through the crowd. My heart started beating really fast... and then the ten minutes was up.


I almost wish I wasn't as skinny as I am. The lady with the ponytail threw herself forward, and I was pushed to the side. By the time I got in there, I got a set of brown sheets. I wanted blue or beige. I ended up trading with a lady afterwards for a beige set. My girl-cousin thought I said "twin" instead of queen, so I didn't get a 600-count. Afterwards, I went to the aisle near the registers to wait for the others. I had magically lost my girl-cousin, even though I saw her two minutes before the madness began, and while I was waiting I was sure that I had left my poor relatives to sudden death in the madness that is Black Friday...

Did I mention I saw a couple people holding iPhones up to film the craziness?

Finally, though, we all managed to find each other, and saw the bounty we had all collected. We got all the movies my mom and I wanted and more, I got one set of sheets out of two, a hat, and the ko-ko. We spent almost two hours there, and managed to get out without any injuries.


Really, all it did was remind me how much I hate Black Friday. There were a few of my people who didn't really believe/like the fact that we had gone, and we decided that after last night we were done. I guess since the sale started at 10PM last night, it technically isn't a Black Friday sale, it's a Brown Thursday. Either way, I'm glad to be alive. I hate Walmart anyways, and the crazy people sales don't help. At least I got to see my old roommate! Yay!