Black Friday, Or How to Spend a Few Hours? X2

After a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the Derr's, this morning was off to a rousing start with a 5am wakeup call to go participate in the US holiday of shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Oh where does one begin?

The mood actually started two days ago at the local food warehouse emporium, WinCo. Some have likened WinCo to Walmart, but I would place it a step up the food chain of people observing. We did once see a woman carry her pet dog in the store crammed and wedged into her cleavage. On Wednesday we weren't into the store a minute before I saw the keeper for the day. A couple walking through the aisles. She, leading the way pushing tha cart and he, following behind doing the baggy pants text-messaging shuffle. He caught my eye for a unique twist, his pants were sweats and the bottoms were not dragging in shreds beneath his feet. He had taken the loose material and balled them into a knot to take up the slack. Novel idea I thought to myself, until I looked northward and realized in disgust that if he had purchased the proper size of sweats and pulled the sweats up to their intended location--No Knot Was Needed! He, oblivious to everything, shuffled along invisably tethered to the woman ahead of him and the electronic collar and leash in his hands.

After that start, much Thankfulness was sucked right out of me. Kind of like the last trip to Walmart, whence Maureen commented that the Sunday afternoon trip just, "Sucked the church right outta me."

So with much foreboding, we rumbled into Visalia where Sam dropped Maureen, Annie and I at the mall. Wils had wisely stayed home in bed. Sam continued to Best Buy and stood in line for 20 minutes just to get in the store at 6am after the store had opened at 5am, another 10 minutes getting across the store because of the crowds, to look at a computer that they had sold out of an hour previously.

The Mall Trio started at J.C. Penney's, then through the audio assault at Hollister, various skate/surf/lifestyle stores, pass the Chinese massage tables outside Victoria's Secret to Gottschalk's to look for a coffee maker. The coffeemaker we received from Freecycle finally had worn out its welcome. Actually it had gone from "never worked very well" to an "electric carrafe" that didn't heat the coffee. A person, usually me, had to heat water, then pour it through the grounds and nuke the coffee in the microwave to bring it up to temperature. With our No-Buy from China challange this year, we thought it might be impossible to find a coffemaker to buy. We actually found two. A Bunn "assembled" in Canada seemed dubiously labeled, but the KitchenAide we purchased was "made" in India. It is only a 10-cup which may become difficult with three coffee drinkers, or may get me to cut back a bit. Interestingly the KitchenAide 14-cup, better for our needs, was made in China.

Well, Que Sera, Sera as Doris would sing. What started as a quest of questionable merit turned into an excellent family adventure.

P.S. We did go out again in the afternoon. The good feelings of the morning dissipated with the crush of people. We added some lines to a cell phone family plan. The unfortunate woman helping us endured her computer freezing for about an hour before we finally were done. Activation took hours more. Such is life.

P.P.S. The photo was taken as I waited for my daughter to exit the dressing room in Penney's.