Black Friday

I don't think I've ever gone shopping on Black Friday, not that I can remember that is. My mother in law used to take her grandson (my nephew, he's 11 and the dd's fav person in the whole world) out to have his pictures taken at JC Penny's every Black Friday. Eventually she took both her grand kids (once I gave birth to the dd and she was old enough to sit by herself in a photo) out on Black Friday to get photos done. Now this is all well and good and we don't care that she has this done. Except when she started getting lazy and expected us to take the kid to the appointment. What's the problem with this you say? Well first of all it's our holiday weekend and I do not appreciate her dictating our schedule. She's retired, what the hell does she care about other people's time frames, rare days off and for the love of God doesn't she know that we spent the entire day prior catering to her time schedule? Screw that, I don't give a rats ass about JC Penny pictures, that's her fixaion.

Oh and lets talk about the icing on the cake here, JC Penny is located in Fashion Vally, the most popular mall in San Diego. The parking is so bad it took us 45 minutes to find a spot that year. In the dirt (and here you thought all of San Diego was covered in concrete) which basically means it was part of the banks of the San Diego river. Not even a real parking spot. All because my mother in law insists on having her grandkid's pictures taken on Black Friday. Why no other day of the week, or even that weekend? Well because she's always done it on that day so that's the day It Is To Be Done. Completely retarded. We decided that year we'd never do it again and if she wanted to do it she could damn well pick up the kid herself because we weren't going to put up with that bullshit again. Totally asinine day to INSIST on getting pictures taken at frikin mall. Lucky us though, we moved the year after and didn't have to deal with the mother in law being pissed off at us and giving us her like 5 yr old child passive aggressive pout during the holidays. I love not living next to family, did I mention that one before?

So today we needed to get the kid out of the house because she was bouncing off the walls. All her friends are off doing whatever it is the families around her drive away to go do. They must like their extended families, weirdos. The happy medium, we went out shopping. Not too adventurous mind you. Well unless you're in Long Island. We went to Walmart to pick up some groceries and scored on some $2-9 DVD's, Ratatouille being high up on that list. Oddly it wasn't busy at all. And those poor people in Long Island, 1 dead because of a mob pushing their way into Walmart? My god what a way to go, can you imagine explaining that one to people?

We then went to a lovely new mall very very close to our home, The Rim. They just opened a new Nordstrom's outlet there, it's one of my favorite stores (they've got one in Fashion Vally). No way in hell can I justify buying anything at Nordy's proper but The Rack? OMG the sales that you can get there are phenominal. I needed a gown once a good long while ago and I went straight there. Got a full length low back totally beaded gown for $60. I don't know what the full price was but it was probably in the hundreds when on the shelf at Nordy's. I don't have the spare cash or the patience for The Rack today, plus it's grand opening was like, a week or two ago, so it was probably a zoo. No thanks, I'm not feeling that adventurous today. We did go to Target, Old Navy, and World Market. The dh had to get another re-usable bottle for the Egg Nog that he makes and gives away to our adult fiends for Christmas. It's very popular, the dh is Irish, he knows his alcoholic drinks. I needed to see if there was a sale at Old Navy that included the yoga pants I find so comfortable on the weekends (I wear scrubs all week at work). Turns out they only come in 2 colors, black that I already own, and navy and I don't like blue.

The good news is that they had panties on sale and I needed to get new ones. How many of you out there have an issue with the price of panties? Where do they get off charging more for a pair than they charge for a t-shirt? I buy my underwear in the kid's section, no lie. They are all pink and green and purple with little animals and such printed on them. Real sexy, I know. But they sell for like 3 for $10 and really, I'm married so do you really think I'm trying to impress anyone here? My poor hubby. They had panties (yeah, grown up panties) on sale for 5 for $15 and that was my big purchase for Black Friday. The stores should be grateful for what little they got from me, I had no intention of shopping today.

Oh the 2 women in front of me in line at Old Navy! Let me tell you an interesting phenomena that I've only seen here in San Antonio. Now mind you we're from San Diego, 45 minutes north of Tijuana, definitely a border town. We have A LOT of Mexican nationals there, a lot. Some people would go so far as to have their kids in private school in the US and drive them to and from school every day from Mexico. San Antonio is not nearly as close to the border as San Diego so you don't see Mexican nationals living integrated in our every day life the way they were in San Diego but instead you see the binge shopping. Did you know that the San Marcos Outlet Mall (45 minutes north of us here) is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the state of Texas? Know why? It's where thousands of Mexican nationals come to shop every day. During the back to school shopping spree you want to stay the hell away from that mall. Outside of the Nike outlet there's a trash can where I have, at one point, seen no less than40 empty Nike boxes where people pulled the shoes out after buying them so they could fit them all in their car with all the other purchases they've made. Note, these people all pay in cash, it's wild to see people pull a HUGE wad of bills out of their pockets. We are so used to paying with cards here that it's a rarity to see that kind of cash carried around.

The Rim was not so very crowded this year, it's a relatively new mall and consequently still mostly only us locals know of this little gem. There was this tour bus, full sized, from Mexico parked in the lot though. All of the baggage compartment below the seats was opened up and not yet full. I suspect the participants of this tour were all shopping and would bring their bags back to be tossed into the compartment and then go back out for the next round. Bring it on, our economy needs the influx! The 2 women in line ahead of me were probably part of this crew, their cart was so piled high with clothing it fell off from the weight or it. They were paying in cash and doing this weird thing where they were sorting the clothes and having the register woman ring the clothes up in batches. They set some clothes up, have her total them, pay in cash, and then repeat. Now I've seen people do this when paying with different credit cards or checking accounts but when paying with cash? Never. Just odd. Plus it was Black Friday, do you think they were taking up an inordinate amount of time with boat loads of others waiting? Yeah, they were but not so bad as to have people complain. Oddly the people out shopping today were not in a rush or agitated like I normally see on a frenzy shopping day. Nope, I think the economy is such crap that people are taking their time and thinking trough each and every thing they are buying this year. About frikin time, US gluttony being what it is.

FWIW the kid is getting presents this year. We'll probably get a little something for each other from 'Santa' but only because the kid still believes an in order to cover for that fantasy we have to have something under the tree for us. I hate this holiday. Have I mentioned that before? Oh sorry...