On the other hand, I love shopping.
I hate that stores are starting Black Friday on Thursdays.
But I like the principle of Black Friday itself... SALES SALES SALES!
In recently years as friends have shared their Black Friday stories on Facebook, I've had a growing urge to check out the hype. The problem has been that November is one of the worst months for me health-wise, and I've been way too sick in past years to even think of venturing out on the craziest shopping day of the year.
However, this year I was really excited about some sales at JCPenneys and JoAnn Fabrics and my father was willing to help me navigate the madness. So, at 5:00 in the morning, we woke up, drove through the dark, and arrived at the doors of JCPenneys just as the crowd was allowed in. It was pretty crazy, and I had to do a bit of ducking and diving to get the pair of boots I wanted, but it wasn't nearly as horrible as I'd expected.
Then we went over to JoAnn's, which was also very busy, but still manageable, so long as you didn't need to get fabric cut. I avoided this (8 yds of pre-cut interfacing for $2.99? Give me six bolts!), but my father needed fabric for curtains in his office, so we did get in line and moved about five feet in twenty minutes. But we were together and it went okay.
Surprisingly the check-out lines went really quickly in all the places we stopped, and the employees were calm and smiling, for which I give them kudos. The customers were obviously sleepy and intense, but the people at JoAnn's are nearly always nice, and stayed true to this rule. One lady even let us go ahead of her in the cutting line!
I would never want to sit out all night in front of Best Buy or any place like that. High end doorbusters are risking a miserable night for a lot of disappointment. But for overall good sales, it was definitely worth going to JoAnn's. I saved over $170 by doing that, and honestly I could have gone a couple hours later and still had a good selection of stock.
Summed up? I had fun. But I'm glad it's a once-a-year thing.
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