I survived Black Friday

For the first time in my life, I made the decision to make the trek to Walmart for the dreaded Black Friday experience. When I turned to see that the parking lot was nearly full, my heart sank.

Anyone who knows me knows that crowds are not my cup of tea. When we got out of the car and I saw four young ladies running into Walmart, the urge to retreat to my vehicle came rushing into my head. The thoughts of two smiling faces on Christmas morning won out, and I continued to make my way through the sliding doors.

Once inside, it was a madhouse. People rushing with wide, glazed over looks in their eyes, trying to find the deals as advertised. My destination was the toy area, so a quote from Star Wars kept echoing in my mind -- "Stay on Target!" which is exactly what I did.

As I closed in on the section, I noticed it was like a herd of cattle, anxiously swaying back and forth, looking for just the right moment to make their move for freedom, or in this case, for a Nintendo DS.

After slinking my way through the crowd to the toy aisle, I found myself alone. No joke. I was able to pick out my gifts in peace and didn't meet with resistance until I desired to leave and couldn't because of the ever flowing surge of people.

My wife and I made a pass around the store and picked up everything on our list and headed for the checkout. A cool 35 minutes later, we were on our way home and back to bed. The total trip took two hours.

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 4:15 a.m. in search of deals and realized that everything we wanted wasn't on the deal list. Of our cartload of gifts, exactly two were Black Friday deals.

The lesson I learned from my Friday excursion is that next year my hind end is staying in the warm confines of my bed and I'll do my shopping online at 8 a.m.

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