Black Sunshine Friday...

Hope everyone had a good holiday... I had to work, so it was hamburgers for Thanksgiving dinner for me. I had offers from family to join them, but everyone had at least two places to go - Since I worked third shift Wednesday, by the time I got up and drove for an hour, I only would have been able to spend about an hour with them, so I decided to pass. But I did get to go to my best friend's house on Saturday and see my godchildren, and that was great. I was having a REALLY terrible day, but when the world's most adorable 4-year-old greets you at the door with a big grin on her face, you forget all that.

I had been playing phone tag with the aforementioned 4-year-olds' father for a few days. I was surprised when my cell phone rang at around 6:30 AM Friday - It was him, and he seemed to be in some kind of stupor. I finally pieced together that he decided to go to Staples first thing Friday morning to get some unbelievable deal they had advertised in their flyer. The store opened at 6 AM, he arrived at 6:05, and they were already sold out of the item he wanted. This put him in an understandably foul mood, and, after telling me he would be around all weekend, he mumbled something about going back to bed and hung up.

This set a foreboding tone for the morning - I picked up a paper Thursday, because although I hate shopping, I love looking at all the shiny new stuff in the ads (this goes back to when I was a kid, when I would drag the Sears Wish Book out onto the living room floor and leaf through it for hours). Now, when I say I hate shopping, I don't mean I merely dislike it - depending on the store and the time of day, I get anxious and start sweating and can't look anyone in the eye and can't communicate beyond monosyllabic grunts until I GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. I think it's that I have just a touch of agoraphobia and social anxiety and, combined with a genuine hatred of good-'ol American zombie-like consumerism, the average retail store creates a perfect storm of triggers. Wal-Mart & traditional shopping malls are the worst - I've only set foot in a shopping mall once in the past seven years. This isn't as much of a problem as you might think, since the Midwest is essentially one giant strip mall these days. However, I am, above all else, cheap - so when I saw some Pioneer bookshelf speakers that I had been drooling over on sale at Circuit City for ten bucks, I decided to swing by after getting off work at 7AM.

The parking lot was packed, but people were coming & going at a pretty good clip, so it didn't take long for something to open up. Walking in, I overhead someone ask an employee if they had any more of a particular digital camera left- the salesman said, "No, we had people getting in line at ELEVEN O'CLOCK LAST NIGHT for those". Jesus, people, it's JUST A CAMERA. It was FOURTEEN DEGREES out Thursday night. Act like you've got some goddamn dignity.

Luckily, the department I needed was relatively deserted (people were mobbing the DVD section) and the speakers were in stock, so the transaction was relatively painless. I did have to pay in the stereo department and go to the "customer pickup" window to get the speakers, and the two teenagers running back and forth to the warehouse looked like they were stoned to the gills and just barely keeping it together. I guess that's one way to deal with it...