I wanted to punch myself in the groin repeatedly

my dad was definitely a bargain shopper, but he always resisted the siren song of the sales held the day after thanksgiving. I now wish I had realized that wisdom.

mom needs a new computer. the one she has at the house is 5+ years old but kicks it like a tandy. so, B-I-L Mike sees that circuit city has an e-machine (what does the "e" stand for? electronic?) at a doorbusting value of $200. the problem is that door busts at 5 am. So I take one for the team and set the alarm for 4:30. it's REAL foggy when I wake up and you can't see more than 20 ft - making driving a challenge especially with deer running around trying not to get shot. I get to c.c. a little after five and there's NO parking. so you've got to play parking roulette and follow a shopper from the store to their car and wait for them to leave. if they parked in the next county, so are you. that's the fun part of the game. I actually lucked out and found an extremely close spot. as i'm walking into the store, someone lays on their horn seemingly to wish another patron "happy holidays" or an "get the F- out of my way." the one horn causes a chain reaction with other "cheerful" shoppers who aren't as good as me at parking roulette. To the right there's a table that was once filled with breakfast items for the people who hunger for more than mere bargains - it's been reduced to nothing more than wrappers and empty cups.

inside the store is worse. a greeter laughs at the kid looking for a ps3. checkout lines wrap around the store making leisurely browsing (my shopping M.O.) an impossibility. there's lines eveywhere. and I mentally prepare for the prospect of standing in one of these lines, thinking I can blog on my phone (which I left in the car anyways.) using the deft footwork frequently showcased by the cleveland browns opponents, I make my way to the computer department only to find another line. I avoided the line by finding onne of the god-forsaken teenagers working there. he had a shorter sub-line of people asking if they should even bother standing in the other line. the woman in front of me in this pre-line had apparently never been to a store or actually out in society. When it was my turn I asked if they had anymore of those computers. He said no. I left, thankfully providing an abrupt ending to my Black Friday Raider career.

People are crazy for a discount.