Black Friday

First of all Happy Thanksgiving to you all. We went up to River Falls on Wednesday to pick up Maddie, pack up as much of her stuff as we could and then spend the Holiday at my sister's. We got a motel room and sort of relaxed on Wed. We did do a little shopping for a netbook for Maddie to take on her European adventure. Target was supposed to have Acer Netbooks on sale for $199.00 so we headed over there in the rain. They had sold out the day before... grrr (sounded like a bait and switch to me, since they still had the sale tag on the shelf model.

anyhow we left there and headed to Walmart. We found the netbooks, but did not see the ACER one in the displays. I happened to look down and in the cage below there were a bunch of them and a very small price on the very bottom of the shelf. We asked the nice man and he said yes they were available, just that he never put one up on the display table. That was a little weird. I asked if they matched prices and he said yes as long as you have the advertisement. Well Maddie had found the price online so did not have an ad. Puck offered to drive her back to Target to find an ad. (it was $100.00 savings) I wandered around and did a little shopping. Finally they came back and we went to checkout. After a lot of hemming and hawing and calling a manager they finally discovered that the Walmart one was a 260 and the Target one was a 250 model so they were off the hook as far as matching the price. Maddie still got it for only $260.00 though so that was better than the full $298.00 that both stores had it listed at.

We did a little soaking in the hottub later on and went to bed. Maddie spent most of the evening playing with her new toy. especially when she found out they had free wireless at the motel. She downloaded Firefox and set up most of her stuff. It was just like having her at home :)

In the morning we were off to Sarah's She is my baby sister and has hosted Thanksgiving for many years. We have not been able to make it for a very long time so it was good to see everyone. I thought the party was going start at noon, so we got there a little early. Turns out it started at 1:00 and Sarah was still in the shower. We visited with her kids and husband until she came down then Puck and Maddie peeled potatoes and I sold her a rug :) I am a very helpful sister.

Pretty soon the gang showed up and we had a great time visiting and laughing like we always do. Sarah served up a delicious meal which we gobbled down. Then we had pie and exchanged names for Christmas and settled on the date for that event. It should be interesting. It looks like many boyfriends and girlfriends will be there this year. I think this will be the time that Maddie's boyfriend meets her family for the first time.

Maddie needed some other things for her costuming class and so we were forced to shop on Black Friday. First we hit Michaels for some black matt board. That went fairly well. The lines were a little long, but not so bad. The only other stop we needed to make was someplace that sold fabric so she could get some swatches of fabric for her costume designs. We got directions to JoAnn Fabrics from the checkout girl at Michaels and after driving thought the labyrinth of malls which is the Woodbury Mall we finally found it. We entered the store and quickly realized that this was going to be a challenge. The checkout line was through half the store.

I grabbed a cart and started trying to follow the blur that was my daughter and quickly decided to find a place to just park. I overheard people saying they had been waiting 2 hours already to get things cut. I then noticed that people were holding tickets. I raced over to that spot and grabbed a ticket (d03) They were calling B's at that time. So I am standing there thinking that this is going to take forever when the lady across from me asks what number I have. I tell her and she says that she will trade my higher number for one of her lower numbers. I am all over this so we swap.

I then realize that she has a mitt full of tickets and is very helpfully swapping them with people so they can have the lower numbers. She keeps the lowest one in her jean's pocket and has the rest all fanned out. So in the spirit of the moment I start helping too. If I overhear someone who is leaving in frustration I ask for their ticket or point them to the nice lady who is collecting for us all. I end up moving up 100 point to C03. That is where I stay. Meanwhile Maddie is running back and forth and filling up the cart with bolts of gray and black.

I hear a rumor that there is a 2 cut only line and so I grab Puck, hand him two bolts and send him to stand in the 2 cut line. Maddie comes back then and she takes another two and stands with her dad. I stay back and visit with the nice lady who is scalping ticket for no return other than kindness. We have now been in the store about a half hour and I am still hearing people commenting about having waited 2 and 3 hours for cutting.

All of a sudden Maddie and Puck move out of the two cut line and she says in a stage whisper "rumor has it that there is a line back there that is just cutting" several of us move over across the room to this new line. I get there fairly quickly. A frustrated woman moves in behind me telling me that this is a 2 cut line and she has been through it twice now and is on her last cut. She goes on to tell me that she questioned a clerk who cut a ton for someone else and when it came to her they would not cut all her stuff. She was pretty frustrated. Then we see some broad who has a cart full to bursting with bolts and it appears that the clerk is cutting all her stuff. I am thinking "great maybe I can get all this cut" the lady behind me is about to go ballistic. Meanwhile they are announcing the cutting table numbers. It is like the lottery. The numbers are getting closer and closer to mine, but heck I am already in a line that will cut at least two of my things and maybe all of it so I hold my post.

Puck and Maddie are ahead of me by a couple people and later I hear how they conversed about ETSY. Those two get done and I send Maddie (who has managed to procure a 20% off coupon) to go stand in line. Oh I forgot about the woman who was in between us a for a little while. She was fretting about getting other stuff done, but was pretty good natured. All of a sudden she crys out "Oh my goodness I just moved my purse and there a B50 ticket at the bottom of my cart." They had just called B53 so we promised her we would save her spot and off she went.

The two ladies in front of me were getting frustrated by the dingbat with all the fabric because she was doing nothing to expedite her cutting. Finally one of the ladies walked over to her and said "why don't you do the folding so this goes faster" The woman looked a little surprised and had a Duh expression for a second then started folding up her stuff. People are so oblivious sometimes.

Finally she was done... then the manager came over and told us all that it was a two cut line so back we were. The frustrated woman behind me gives up and goes to wait in the regular cut lane where she will need her ticket. I don't know why she didn't stay in line where she would have gotten her last two cuts. Her number was higher than mine and I stayed.

I finally reached the cutter and asked told her "yes, I knew it was a two cut line, I wanted 6 inches of each of two" Got that and Puck showed up. I gave him my two cuts to give to Maddie and was just about to get into the two cut line again when they called the numbers just before mine. Someone shouted that C00 had left in defeat so we knew that my number was just around the corner. I raced up and waited for my number to be called. They had to give it a little time and the feeling was just like waiting for the bus to move on that show! There actually was a faint chant going through the crowd of "change, change, change!" They called my number and I flew up. We got the rest of our fabric cut in about 10 minutes.

Puck and I brought our fabric down to meet up with Maddie who had only needed to step back twice in line. It took us a little less than an hour to complete the whole adventure and it was actually sort of fun acting as a team and getting the job done due to good strategy and tenacity.

Took Maddie and her stuff back to the dorm and finished stuffing the car with as much of her things as we could fit into the car. When we get her at Christmas we will need to bring home all of her stuff so this should help a great deal.

Then Puck and I headed for home. It is good to not be driving today, but I think I need to go bake some cookies.

That next Holiday is just around the corner