Merry (Early) Christmas To Me

"Tell me all the ways to stay away...black out days." - Phantogram

Omigod, you guys! I did a bad, bad thing. I contributed to the downfall of society. I chose to be a mindless zombie to consumerism. I was a part of the problem, rather than the solution. Yes, you guessed it, I shopped at Walmart on Black Fri...I mean, Thurs...I mean, Thanksgiving. I couldn't help it, dammit! The Furby made me do it!

What I mean to say is when your little girl looks at you with her big, brown eyes and says, "Mommie, I want a Furby for Christmas," you do what you got to do to make that shit happen. Yes, I could have ordered one online for $60 while in bed in my PJ's, but Walmart was advertising them for just $30 at 6pm on Thanksgiving. I thought to myself, "Cool, I can just scoot into the store a few minutes before 6pm, pick up a Furby from the toy section, and scoot right out. All the crazy, psychotic shoppers will be hitting up the electronics section while I fly under the radar and snag myself a 50% off Furby." Yeah, yeah, yeah...laugh it up. I was but a babe in the proverbial Black Friday woods, but my ass got schooled this year.

You see, I've never done the Black Friday thing (well, except once at Anthropologie, but I didn't get to the store until later on in the morning). I'd like to say it's because I'm above all the frantic consumerism, but honestly, it's because I'm not a morning person. If they were giving away Anthro dresses for free...maybe I'd stand in line at the crack of dawn...maybe... Otherwise, I'd rather sleep than shop. So, this year when some of the big retailers announced they would be open on Thanksgiving and that the deals would start that night, I thought, "Yep, the human race is going straight down the crappers, but, hey, this might be a Black Friday I can do."

Armed with an elaborate plan (Get in, get the Furby, get out), I rolled up to Walmart around 5:50 last Thursday night. I was shocked, I say shocked, to see that there was not a space to be had in the ginormous parking lot. Oh well, the fire lane it was, because, you know, I was just going to be in and out. I was pleasantly surprised to not see a line outside. You always hear about the crazy long lines. Once inside, though, I discovered why there was no line: There was a sea of people filling up every aisle, all of them with their hands on big pallets of stuff, ready to rip into the cellophane wrapping at the strike of 6. I quickly figured out that I hadn't a clue what was going on. Apparently that map I saw of the store online the day before was no ordinary map. It was a map of where the stuff was going to be, as in shit wasn't going to be where it would normally be. Fuck!

To make a long story short (too late), it took me 55 minutes to figure out that one had to procure a "Furby ticket" from the mysterious man in the yellow jacket standing in the electronics section. Once I fought my way through the rowdy crowds to said gentleman, he informed me that I had 5 minutes to check out. What?!? I'm not proud of what I did next, but like I said...big brown eyes, you do what you got to do...I totally cut in line and did my best to ignore the pissed off lady yelling behind me. I paid for my "promise of a future Furby" with a few seconds to spare. I left the store feeling like I had really accomplished something until I got home, logged into Walmart's website to complete my Furby purchase, and discovered that Furby's were now being sold online with batteries included for $40. Fuck my life!

To ease the pain inflicted by that bitch Reality, I immediately went into shopping therapy mode and decided to search online for a deal on a pair of Frye boots I've had my eye on for awhile now. I may have gotten screwed over by the Furby, but the odds were in my favor with the Frye's. I found a pair in my size in the color I wanted for $186 plus free 2 day shipping on Amazon Warehouse Deals. I had never ordered anything from Amazon Warehouse before, so I was skeptical of what these boots would look like in person. I figured at that price there would be a big old scuff mark on them or something. However, as you can see, they were perfect! They look and feel brand new!

Moral of the story: No matter how shitty and stressful things get this time of year, Christmas miracles can still happen!