Black Friday

5:00 am: Phone alarm goes off. I fumble to find the phone, trying to silence it before it disturbs hubby. Am a little disoriented since I am not at my house. Hit snooze button.

5:10 am: Alarm goes off again. This time I have it in my hand. I fell back asleep with the last snooze. Hit snooze again.

5:11 am: Purposely remove covers and face bright sunny window to try to wake me up.

5:15 am: Turn off alarm before it goes off again. Drag myself out of bed into the bathroom.

5:16 am: Get dressed and all that.

5:30 am: Grab hubby's car keys, my coat, scarf, purse and all the newspaper ads. Quietly sneak out without waking anyone up.

5:32 am: Get in car, wrap blanket around my legs, turn defroster on full blast. Wait a minute for ice to melt.

5:33 am: Defroster actually works in this car. Pull out and am on my way to Staples.

5:48 am: Arrive at Staples. Line is LONG. Feeling a little depressed thinking there's no way I'll get the items I wanted.

5:49 am: Get in line. With aforementioned blanket. Watch kid in front play with laser pen. Enjoy new neighbors behind me, three college boys, talk about their all night escapades of standing in line at Walmart to get laptop. They don't get one.

5: 53 am: Bored with laserlight entertainment, call daughter and son-in-law to see if they are up yet. No. They are now.

6:00 am: Doors open. Half of line disappears into store. Line suddenly stops moving. Manager comes out to report phones are sold out. There's still hope for my items! People behind go up around line and get right in the doors. Someone sends wife to find out why people are able to cut line. Find out that if you don't want something from front page you can go right in, but the front page items are being distributed by ticket.

6:03 am: Enjoy college kids talking in different accents, and quoting movies.

6:10 am: Finally get in. Get tickets for everything I wanted. Get the flash drive ticket, even though I don't need it, and give to college kid who wishes he could get two.

6:11 am: See very long check-out lines, ask manager if I can keep tickets and bring back later to purchase. Yes! As long as it is before 10 am. Sweet.

6:12 am: Head to Walmart. Slim pickings. Pick out some dvds.

6:50 am: Daughter calls. She meets me in the toy department. Do some nice price matching and check out quickly.

7:30 am: Head back to Staples. Get my schtuff. Shorter check out line! Got two new hard drives, one for my lappie, one for the desktop. Head over to Joanns, right next door. Pick out a few items, see check out line that goes all the way to back of store. Put items back, and leave.

Rest of morning... hit Circuit City, Target, Best Buy, Gamestop, Kohls. Score some nice dvds at some of the places. Others are a bust. Kohls had the same problem as Joanns. Way too long a line. They lost two customers.

Done by noon.

Made a dent in my Christmas Shopping List. My non-existant shopping list, that I will have things to cross off of as soon as I make it.

Happiest about the Staples purchases.

Got home tonight by 8 pm. Read the paper. Set up my new harddrive for my lappie, backed up my files. Read email and some message boards.

Found out I could have ordered all my Staples stuff online and not have had to get up before the crack of dawn.

Oh well. It was fun. Really!