Phlip - 1, Black Friday - 0

            So it’s 4:30pm on Black Friday.  I had successfully managed to not have to leave my house to do anything other than pay a couple of bills as I might do on any payday Friday I should so happen to not have to work.  Hell, it is what I would do if I HAD to work.  Stops also include also payday standards Food Lion and ABC (grocery and liquor for those who don’t live here) for the items I would normally acquire to get me through a weekend.

            As my child is still only one year and four months old, she does not yet have the tastes that even MIGHT require that I stand out in the ball-chillingly 25º morning before a store opened to buy her anything.  Responsible adulthood has unlearned me the habit of really wanting many things for myself that aren’t directly tied to the experiences of holding down my house for Ava and my wife.  About noon, coming in from taking my mother with me to the grocery store for a second time and returning back after dropping her off and returning her to her own residence, my wife asks “what else do you have planned today?” to which I motioned to the sink full of dishes and then the door while responding “outside? nothing!”
I then proceeded to load what was at the time my second load of dishes into the washer, as well as two of the loads of laundry I had set myself up to do before I looks up and the mailman is passing by much later in the day than he normally would.  Contained in that mail was my check from my part time employer, which I had already earmarked to be for Ava’s Christmas gifts.  The initial plan was that I would use some cash off of my regular paycheck and let the soon-arriving PT to supplement or replace what I spent.  The wife and I WERE going to go out and do just that on Saturday at some point, again because there was literally nothing needed in a Black Friday sale that would be worth causing me to get an assault charge.

            “Wanna do something stupid?” I asked, to which her response was “like what?”  I explained that I would catch a quick shower and we could go to Target and get the half of the baby’s haul that I intended to come from there.  “But, Black Friday…” before I chimed in with “that was this morning, let’s judge against the parking lot and we can always turn away.”

            By 5:15pm, we were in the closest non-handicapable spot at Target and my silly-ass idea had worked.  I feel something for the people rallying for the plight of underpaid Wal-Mart workers and in such had not set foot in one since the prior Saturday but that was just as much a product of me HATING crowds as it was any solidarity that flies in the face of my better financial sensibilities.  In the end, everyone won.  Phillip did not assault any soccer moms because of their inability to get out of his way while he looked for something for a child who still can not understand Christmas, thus making himself happy.  He saved a FEW dollars by being able to get into the store on Friday before the Saturday restock/pricejack, and ALSO appeased the hippies by not having given the Walton family a single dime on Black Friday.
… and I STILL managed to get the rest of her gifts the following morning – actually driving my smaller car further than I have in one sitting than I had at any one time in the prior 2 years in the process – but I was out and back to the house before 11:30 and therefore in plenty of time to watch college football, so I guess I won all around.

            Now about the task of acquiring my wife’s gifts, which will be much less of an ordeal.