So, it’s been a lovely, four-day weekend, and actually, you might say, “Jennifer! You’re so lucky, you have tomorrow off, too!” But then I’d point out I’m getting a root canal at 9 a.m. and your face would sort of melt into “OH NO” sympathy. Frankly, I could give a rip about the procedure at this point, I’ve had multiple rounds since June with this tooth, and the crown covering the crack, and I’ve finally had to “bite the bullet” and accept the toothy truth, that only a root canal will stop the pain from cold, or serious chewing. (I’ve simply GOT to stop borrowing the dogs’ nylabones!) What really gets my goat about the whole procedure is that all my “dental insurance” got used up on the crown, so I’m paying for this gem out-of-pocket. I could get a KitchenAid 6 mixer, have dinner at Em Chamas, get Tripper neutered, and probably still have a good chunk of change leftover to party all week with that kind of coin.
That aside, the weekend, to this point, has been pretty good – though I must say, I think I’m done with Black Friday. There really weren’t any deals that I needed, and let me just run through my morning to illustrate how true this is:
Awaken at 4:15 a.m. Proceed to try to talk myself out of going altogether. This almost works, but at the last minute I rally and push myself to get dressed & go.
Arrive at Gordmans, approximately 5:05 a.m. They had a deal where you got 25% off your entire purchase, if you were one of the first 300 people in the store. I neglected to notice the fine print, which said, “Everything you can fit into this BAG”, and since I was going to buy a dog bed, that blew that right out the window. So I got JWo two pairs of socks & a new rug for the kitchen in front of the sink. Yeah.
But wait! Then I go over to Linens-n-Things, where I discover the “Doorbusters” are exempt from the 20% off coupon. There go the things on my list, right out the window. With the memory still fresh of peeling 8# of potatoes, I decide I’m worth it. Yep. I bought an $8.00 vegetable peeler. With my coupon. And asked myself as I left the store why in hell I was doing this.
Because then it was on to Target, my love, how I adore the Target, and usually, on Black Friday, I’m running late & I miss most of the crowded throng and just sail right on in. However, because I am not buying much at these other stores, I’m there before it opens. So I go to get in line. Oh. Mah. God. The line wrapped around the corner and halfway the length of the store. The very thing I said I would not do. And once the doors opened, it was pandelerium. People were after cameras and tvs. I reassured myself that my coveted item (a 500GB external hard drive for $87) was probably not THE ITEM everyone was waiting for…. though by the time I steered through the crowd (and the 5 people snatching up some sort of iPod docking system), there weren’t but 6-7 of the hard drives left on the shelf. Phew. My geekdom, preserved. Most of the other stuff I bought was not Christmasey. Light switch covers. Hair color. A couple of games to donate to St. Vincent’s Operation Breakthrough. Baking soda. I even had coupons. The most cheerful woman in the universe checked me out & marveled at the items in my cart. What can I say, lady. My season is a little weirder than yours.
Last, but not least, I went over to Michael’s, because they also had a coupon for 25% off your entire purchase, and that didn’t have to fit in a bag. Too bad they don’t have dog beds. Anyway, I got a bunch of baskets, for gifting our canned goodies, and various and sundry small things for my secret pal. I didn’t have the strength to go to JoAnn’s at that point, and I just went home & collapsed. My euphoria comes from the deal & the steal, and really, anymore, those things are going to be the day after Christmas. I did go to Bath & Body Works on Saturday, and just about got caught in a race war between a customer and a sales clerk, which let me tell you, was enough to whack me out of my daze, because holy crap! The (black) customer asked if the African-American woman (the only other visible sales associate) could help her with the return, after the (white) sales clerk had just told her she was waiting for her manager to complete the return, and the clerk replied with “It’s not that I can’t do it because I’m Caucasian….” and I didn’t really hear the rest, because holy crap! Nobody really needed to be identifying each other by race, but the sales clerk should have let it go and just re-explained the need for the manager’s involvement. The customer was turning to me, and the lady in front of me, for solidarity and shared shock, and I just kept a very surprised-I-am-not-getting-involved look on my face, because, holy crap! Merry Christmas Shopping! Let’s talk about race, baby! Let’s talk about you & me! Let’s talk about all the lotions and the soaps that we see! I was tired, I just wanted to buy my four anti-bacterial hand soaps and various other products, use my coupons, and get home. But I did think about the exchange quite a bit, and concluded that even had the roles been reversed, responsibility still fell to the sales clerk to handle it appropriately. (And she realized what she’d done, and apologized about 70 times, and talked about how stressful the day had been, to the point I just wanted to say, “Lady, let it go. You’re now making it worse.”) Though it was strange to call out the other associate as being the same race as her, like somehow she might get better/necessary service. (Perhaps because this whole thing had happened on Grey’s Anatomy this week, it felt more pointed!) I think, in the end, you just have to rise above and do the right thing. It’s not a bad mantra, and it has usefulness in lots of situations. (So easy to say it, so difficult to do when you’re stressed!)
Anyhoo, my weekend concluded with many hours spent tearing out the garden, smelling rotten tomatoes (and errantly squishing some in my hands) and slimy okra stems and decaying peppers. The worst part of it wasn’t the rotten veggies, but was the blasted sticker bushes that had grown up in some of the peppers, and by the end of my work I looked like that fucker from Hellraiser, on the right half of my body. That took a good 15 minutes to pick out all the burrs, and every time I do, of course, I think of the dude who invented Velcro, and I also think of my dad. He’d have me pick the burrs out of his clothes and boots, post-hunting. (They clung to his bootlaces like crazy) I think that’s where some of my Task/Project/Accomplishment/Perfection streak comes from, because those were all things you never. ever. did half-assed. Otherwise you got to do it again, and what made the second time worse, besides having to keep doing it, was knowing that you’d disappointed. I could have done more in the garden, but I was starting to tire, and I still had to scrape the paint from the windows I’d painted a week ago. Suffice it to say, my right shoulder’s barking at me tonight. Tomorrow, it’ll be my left jaw, and yeah, this part of getting older sucks, the elasticity of youth isn’t there to help you bounce back and feel like a spring chicken – even the same day. But JWo spent the morning with the NYTimes reporter, and the article should appear in a couple of weeks or so. He’s already in bed, and I’m heading there shortly. Much as I want to stay up and watch Dexter, it’s a show we watch together, so I’ll save it for tomorrow night – a nice distraction from any discomfort, methinks. (I should make some jell-o tomorrow. Yeah.)
Hope everyone else had a lovely holiday weekend, and if you did go out and shop, you got the deals you wanted! Now, I’ll just hope that I get offered the chance to buy a KitchenAid 6 mixer from Amazon for $69 on Wednesday. THAT would make my day!
