Suttie’s first Thanksgiving was a great success. He was able to try gravy, mashed potatoes, turkey, carrot cake, and cranberry sauce, and then refused to eat his baby food for the next three days. But for his dad and I, Thanksgiving dinner (or dinners in our case) was more than a meal…it was an essential bit of carbo-loading before our Black Friday shopping.
After Thanksgiving dinner (which followed Thanksgiving lunch), we dropped Suttie and all of his gear off at my in-laws and headed to town. First item on the agenda – see New Moon for the second time, thereby becoming indefinitely indebted to my husband. We had to sit in the Privѐ seats so that he could drink a beer before he fell asleep during the previews. But I have to admit that I like the fact that Sutton is not into these kinds of things. The overweight, 40-something gentleman to my right “oohed” and “aahed” like a pre-teen princess throughout the movie and had me poised to report an Amber Alert as we left the theater.
From there, we made our way to the Toys ‘R Us midnight sale. Our mission: save $30 on a wagon. To accomplish this mission: spend $45 on coffee, Hot Hands, and a bribe for a better place in line. To say that it was crazy is a vast understatement. Since we got there around 10:30 pm, we were able to secure a decent line position, but within another thirty minutes, the line had wrapped itself back around to the starting point. There is something called a Zhu-Zhu Pet (essentially a robotic rat), which people were figuratively (and perhaps some literally) wetting themselves to get a ticket for.
However, what I will NEVER understand is how parents can think that it is reasonable to stand in line with an 8 to 10 month old baby for two hours (or more) in the freezing-ass cold to save money on things that they really don’t need. If you can get a babysitter, great, come join us as we shake and shiver like the idiots that we are. But don’t bring a child out in this mess! You may get little Johnny that maze-running rat, but you will have also given him the gift of viral pneumonia.
In the end, we got Suttie’s discount wagon without any struggle because, apparently, wagons (not being electronic rats) are not a hot ticket item this year, meaning that we could have waited until normal store hours to buy one. But then we wouldn’t have gotten to see the near fist fight in the board game aisle or the insane line system that Toys ‘R Us uses, which makes it impossible to reach half of the store’s merchandise. We also made a 4 am stop at the mall and a 6:00 am run to Target. We got everything on our list and saved almost 50% of the costs. So, was it worth the stress, the sleeplessness, and the cold, you ask? Absolutely. But don’t ask my husband because he’ll lie and say it wasn’t.
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