I am here to admit that I am one of "those" people. Yeah. I am among the other crazies who get out of the house at the ass crack o' dawn to shop the day after Thanksgiving.

Our morning started at 2:30am. I got up, rubbed my eyes, blinked a few times, went pee and realized that we were going shopping! Yay! (Actually, it's not so much the shopping I was excited about as I was about spending the entire day with Ben.) I came into the living room and turned on my computer where lo and behold, I see my lovely sister Karyl was online. Of course, I couldn't resist a quick chat knowing that soon she'd be going to bed for the night and I was awake for my day.

After my chat with her, I took my shower and got dressed, etc. We both were out the door at 4:15am.

There's an area of town that we both adore. The city is Wellington, FL and it's in the confines of West Palm Beach. The mall there is H-U-G-E. Not only is it large, two-story and filled with tons of stores we both enjoy, but it's also a relatively new mall. I think it was built in the last 3 - 5yrs.

We opted to go to this area of town for our "Black Friday" shopping. This is the 3rd year we've opted to participate in Black Friday and each of the other years we've gone to Best Buy.

Now, we have this philosophy--- we go there expecting nothing. If we find a good deal on something, then great. If not, then we've happened to get out of the house extra early and spent quality time with each other.

We arrive at the BestBuy at just after 5am and could see that they had begun to let the first customers inside the doors. We also noticed that BestBuy's tiny parking lot was full to the gills. However, all was not lost!

Ben spotted a BrandsMart "behind" the BestBuy. (For those of you not familiar, BrandsMart is the Wal-Mart of BestBuy--- discount electronic stuff.)

He pulls the car around and we almost both gasped! The BrandsMart parking lot was GARGANTUAN! I mean huge-er than huge! It was enormous. It wasn't even 1/2 full! We also noticed that BrandsMart hadn't opened their doors yet so we assumed that they were going to open either at 5:30 or 6am. We park the car, get out, lock the doors and proceed to walk around the backside of BestBuy.

We were immediately stopped by "Security Bob". (That's Ben's nickname for all security guys who look like they've been "rented" for the day.)
He immediately stops us and inquires, "Are you going to BestBuy?" We replied, "Yeah." He said, "You have to move your car. You can't park here."

Ben starts to get a little hot under the collar. "We're going to BestBuy first and then to BrandsMart," he tells the guy. (This was truthful by the way.) Rent-A-Cop shakes his head no and states, "If you leave your car here, it will be towed."

Well, Miss Smarty-Pants had to put her 2 cents in: "Oh. Okay," I start to say calmly. "How much does it cost to be towed?"

I get the "Deer-In-The-Headlights" look from him. He shrugs his shoulders. I say very sweetly--so sweetly it was damned near laced with saccharin---"Well then do you have the number to the tow company so I can call them?" He again shook his head no.

Of course he didn't have that information because it wasn't true. BrandsMart was merely making THREATS towards the patrons trying to park in THEIR lot. Hmmmm...

I think I threw the guy for a serious loop. Ben looked at me and we headed back to the car. We went to the other side of the parking lot to turn around. He said he was going to park where everyone else was (mix in) and still walk over to BestBuy. And while I think that BrandsMart's Security Bob was probably and most likely bluffing, I still didn't like the feeling of going against the grain in this case. Ben reluctantly agreed with me and we drove off. He realized at the light that there was a mall across the street. (Not the mall we normally go to.) He parked in their lot---there weren't any Security Bobs to tell us we couldn't---and we walked over to BestBuy.

The line had wrapped around to the back of the building by this time and we all know how big BestBuy buildings are in size! Despite the long line, we were inside in under TEN minutes. Yeah!

We milled around and surprisingly, it wasn't really that crowded. Sure, there were a lot more people than normal but it didn't feel like we were squished in like sardines. We did manage to score a deal on an 2GB SD memory card for our camera--- $29! It's a good brand, too. And we picked up some cool looking blank CDs: 50 for $20. There was a brand that was selling theirs for $14, but for $6 more, I got the ones that had a cool design on them. (They had the same brand of blank DVDs for $4.99 again this year but we're stocked on those. We bought the Dynex brand last year; 50 blank for $4.99 and we just finished using them about a month ago.)

We also picked up the first season of one of our fave sit-coms: "How I Met Your Mother" (Mondays on CBS at 8pm).

Nice plug, eh?!?

We only stood in the checkout line for about 5minutes. In fact, we were in and out of BestBuy in just under an hour! There were no angry people. Everyone was calm. No one was shoving, pushing, trampling, etc.

My theory of this is that we went to an area of town that's a little more affluent. By this I mean that these people probably had the mindset we did: If they got a deal, great. If they didn't no biggie cause they can afford to pay the regular prices. Whereas in the lesser affluent areas I believe that the people there are relying heavily on scoring a huge deal (or deals) in order to provide gifts to their loved ones.

This brings me back to the point of how many people forget what the true meaning and spirit of the holiday season is supposed to represent. BrandsMart and their Rent-A-Cop(s) surely didn't demonstrate giving, caring and sharing... they were down right Scrooge-y to keep their parking lot all to themselves!

So, I implore all of you to TRY to keep the holiday spirit with you during the next several weeks. It doesn't hurt to spread kindness, generosity and good will towards others.

Until next time... peace, love & HEALTH!!!