After I wrote about my last post

I heard the awful story about that guy getting trampled to death at the Walmart. Not my Walmart, just some Walmart in New York or something. And they said that was the first Black Friday fatality. As bad as that is, it does rather surprise me if that was really the first. Things get ugly out there sometimes.

I'm not sure how I would make it better. At the place I went at 6am, you had to wait to get a coupon. I personally didn't wait, cause they decided to open fifteen minutes early, so I walked right up to the door. But maybe if they did something like that. Not a coupon exactly, but sort of a voucher, and if you don't wait your turn in line and behave yourself, you won't get a voucher, and if you get inside without a voucher they won't sell you the good sale stuff. Maybe if you knew that pushing your way inside wasn't going to get you anything, you wouldn't do it.

Like I said before, I didn't do much actual Christmas shopping that day, because we were waiting to draw names or something, and I didn't know what to buy. But I did need a few things for myself, so I went to a few sales. The first place was Anna's Linens, which was having sheets on sale for half off, and if you were the first 100 costumers you got a $10 off coupon. Well, I didn't want to deal with 5am at Walmart, but maybe there wouldn't be such a crowd at the lesser known Anna's. And I didn't want anything bad enough to set the alarm and get up really early, but if I woke up on time anyway I would go. And I woke up at the perfect time to get to Anna's before 6am, and I got a coupon.

Two people did cut in line right in front of me. And I am usually the type of person to do something about it. Not start a physical fight do something about it, but complain about it and ask to see the manager do something about it. That's part of her job, and I don't doubt that she would have asked them to move, but right when that happened, I didn't see her, and I figured that it would take longer to go and get her than to just put up with it. Besides, I was right there at the front of the line, and if I had gone to get the manager I might have been told that I'd lost my place in line, or someone might have taken something that I meant to buy or something like that. I just decided to wait.

So I had my sheets by a little bit after 6:30, and I decided to have a look at Walmarts since they were in the same shopping center. And I decided to leave my car where it was and walk. I was looking for a crockpot and some jeans and some movies. I had trouble finding what I was looking for. I figured that the really hot sale items might be in a big display instead of on the normal shelves, but I couldn't find them anyway. I just figured that the crock pots were got already. I scanned lots of jeans, but none of them seemed to be the eight dollar ones. I asked an employee about the crockpots and the movies. The crockpot display had been moved across from the toys, and I didn't see any left, so I figured that they were all gone and that the jeans were all gone too. The two dollar movies were moved to the grocery area, and I bought ten of them. By the time I found the movies I wanted and gave up on the other stuff, the lines were not too bad and I bought my movies and went on to Best Buy.

At Best Buy I bought another movie, and then realized that I should have bought another movie at Walmart. Rather than go back to Walmart, I just thought that I would pay an extra dollar and buy it at Best Buy. Only Best Buy was sold out, and I knew that Walmart still had plenty of them. So I bought one movie from Best Buy and took it back to the car. And then I remembered that I needed computer paper and orange juice, so I might as well go back to Walmart and buy those and that other movie. Again, I lucked out and the lines weren't long.

Time to head home. I wanted to stop at the bank and make a car payment, only I was too early and the bank wasn't open yet. It was only about 8:30. I had made purchases in three stores and even gone into Walmart twice, and I had been gone less than three hours.

I had something to eat and then headed out again, cause I had to drop off something at the library and I still had to make that car payment. And I thought that as long as I was out that I'd check out another Walmart. Walmart supposedly had 50 different movies on sale for two bucks, and I don't think that I saw 50 movies, so I was wondering if the other Walmarts stocked different movies. Which it turned out that they had a few that the other one didn't, but also that they didn't have a few that the other one did, which was too bad because it had occurred to me that I should have bought multiple copies of a children's film to give to charity stuff.

I was about to give up and go home, but I stumbled upon one of those on sale crockpots. Lucky me. So I decided to look for those eight dollar jeans again. I asked someone this time. She said that the jeans were moved, so that they were still in clothing, just not in the women's area. And at first I didn't see anything that I wanted, but then I found two that might be it. I went to the scanner, and they came up eight dollars.

Now I see that the sale jeans look identical to the other jeans I looked at earlier, but that the barcode on the tag is at the bottom of the size tag, and the regular priced jeans had the barcode up at the waist. So this defeated my plan of just grabbing some jeans and not trying them on and trying to exchange them later, cause I would have to exchange them for other jeans with this same barcode, and they wouldn't have any of those to exchange later. But I did find two pair that I thought might work, one that might have been a bit loose, or one that might have been a bit tight, but I figured that with my weight going up and down that was the way to go. And it turns out that one fits pretty good, and the other still fits but is a bit loose. So that was good, except now I'm regretting that I didn't buy a couple that I put back cause they were longs. For eight dollar jeans it might be worth it to buy some long and hem them. But I guess it doesn't matter that much, as they were the new jeans that I have complained of before, though these are at the mid-rise and not the really low-rise things that leave your butt crack hanging out. Just at some point you have to buy some new jeans, even if you do not like the current style that much, or else you will end up having worn out all your jeans and have none to wear at all.

So that was my Black Friday success story. Two pair of jeans, a crockpot, three sheet sets, eight movies, computer paper, and orange juice.