Black Friday Shopping?

Not me, thank you very much. I have never ever been Black Friday (or Black Thursday since everyone is opening right after turkey these days) shopping in my life except for that one time. More about that one time later.

I have never been Black Friday shopping for quite a few reasons, the main one being that Black Friday falls towards the end of the month and rent or house payments have always been due at the end of the month and therefore I've never had any money to go Black Friday shopping with. Another reason is that I don't much like shopping anyway and the thought of standing in line for hours and hours and then trampling over people to get into the store when the doors finally open just does not appeal to me. And how many TVs do people need, anyway? I was watching some of the news this morning and people had their carts full of 2, 3 and 4 TVs and what, do they have a TV in each room including the bathroom? And they have to upgrade them each year? I just don't get it.

The whole Black Friday frenzy kind of sickens me, actually. I just hope nobody got killed this year.

Oh, and the one and only time I went Black Friday shopping was totally unintentional. One year after Thanksgiving I got a bug up my you know what to do some heavy duty cleaning and decided to throw away my old nasty plastic trash can and go get a new one. Forgetting that it was Black Friday, I went over to Walmart in Oxnard to get a trash can, and I don't really remember why I didn't just look at the packed parking lot and turn back around, but I had thrown away the old trash can and really needed a new one, so went into Walmart. I stood in line for at least 30 minutes. To buy one plastic trash can.

So, how was our Thanksgiving dinner last night? Kind of sucky, actually. Don't buy the turkey breast and stuffing pre-cooked entree from Trader Joe's. Just don't. And as far as premade mashed sweet potatoes? Yuck. Frozen apple crisp from Vons? Edible, but nothing that I would waste money on again. Next year I will turn over a new leaf and not be so lazy and maybe I'll fix a real dinner. Maybe.

I have a hard time planning any kind of holiday thing, I don't know if it's that seasonal thing or what but I get real annoyed and a little depressed around the holidays. You want to have that picture perfect magazine spread holiday celebration and it just doesn't happen that way because magazine spread holiday celebrations are not real. Instead you are in the kitchen cursing the gravy because it won't thicken or you are frantically whipping potatoes and you are sweating and there aren't enough chairs and the kitchen is a mess and then you finally get everything on the table and it's all over with in about 5 minutes.

 Then you have to clean it all up.