Black Friday Shopping Review

I don’t do Black Friday. I would rather pay double than shoulder my way through crowds at four in the morning to tear the last Cabbage Patch Doll from the clutches of a geriatric blue-hair. My job is to stay home with the kids and let my wife battle the crowds searching for that super deal. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t make her go, she loves to go. She plans for it for weeks, checking the Black Friday websites for deals and scouring that Thanksgiving Day newspaper for "The Great White Stag" of this year’s hunt. The prep work and plan of attack is half the fun. My extended family is into it as well, and if they happen to be in town, they all head out at around 4a.m. eager as can be.

This year my wife was on her own, but the family was in constant cell phone and texting contact. Everyone had their lists and the collaborative effort to conqueror was nothing short of Napoleon. I heard her get up and then dropped my head back down on the pillow looking forward to my sleep-in day. 6:04a.m., I dart awake from my first text message. This is from my sister in Phoenix. She has some questions about the something on "The List". I reply. 6:08 a.m., another message from my sis. She wants to know if the wife succeeded with certain acquisitions. I page the wife, then the sis and try to go back to sleep. 6:20a.m., I get another message about whatever. I text back and tell them to stop bugging me and text my wife directly. I’m Sleeping! They reply "If we are up, you are up"….and then the onslaught began. Questions led to more questions and I found myself in front of the computer playing ground station for five separate Black Friday shoppers. Cell phone texting rocks by the way, I’ll cover that in another review, I digress. I was double checking deals, Amazon, the Black Friday website. I was reading specs and fine print. Purchase after purchase, deal after deal, I offered the inside scoop that ensured our sparse cash was getting us the best possible deal. Yeah, I’m an Internet shopping wizard and my lightning hands probably saved us upwards of seven bucks for the day.

Truth be told, I was never going to get any sleep. They all had my number and I was a part of it, like it or not. Honestly, it was kind of fun, after I let go of the hope of extra sleep. I guess I am happy to play my part in Black Friday as long as I can do it in my underwear in front of a computer monitor. The money was going to be spent anyhow and my family members that go out, love it. I can’t understand for the life of me why, but they do. So my rating also reflects their love of this 21st century tradition. Next year, I’m sleeping next to the laptop.