We Almost Died That Day

Several years ago Shawn and I attended our first Day After Thanksgiving Sale. Shawn had never been to one of these. I had once, when I was very young and was almost trampled by a sea of women fighting over sweaters. I told my mother I would never go with her to one of those sales ever again.

So there we were, at 5:30 in the morning just trying to save a few bucks as we searched for gifts for our nieces and nephews (there are 7 or 8 in all; who can keep up?)

We planned out our route and aimed our attack on the toy store. We studied the toy store flyer like a soldier studies his assignment. As we made it to the mall doors crowded by fellow soldiers, we realized we weren’t the only ones sent to accomplish a mission.

As the doors opened, the all too familiar sea of women ran down the main corridor. We laughed. “They’re actually running!” Shawn chuckled. I laughed because it was apparently the first time these women had ran in at least a year, or since the last Day After Thanksgiving Sale.

We were not prepared like good soldiers. These ladies were Professionals. They had experience and talent and skill. By the time we made it to the toy store, all the brand new $100 Gameboys on sale for $40 were gone. Every last one of them.

Unfortunately, we were not on the up and up of what goes on during one of these sales. The fire marshall was no where to be found, but if he were there, he’d have a fir by how many people were crammed into a store the size of a shoe box. We didn’t realize you could play the “I lost my kid in there,” card to get further back. Now that’s just playing dirty.

Ok, so we got dirty. We had a friend that worked at the store and luckily by the grace of God, we spotted him. We took out our sale flyer in which we had circled everything we planned to buy. We kept our blueprints and maps and GPS devices on hand, you know, just in case. We passed the flyer over several heads and just stood in one place since we could not move. No one would allow us to move for fear we might grab the thing they were shopping for.

Our friend returned from the lines with almost everything on our list. He even took a bullet on the way back but we would never forget what that kid did for our country that day. We thanked him graciously and awarded him a purple heart for his bravery.

After standing in line for 12 hours, we finally paid for our stuff and took off our oxygen masks to finally breathe some fresh air that didn’t contain any pathogens such as 30,000 different types of perfume, body odor, and morning breath.

In the end, Shawn was groped once (on purpose), I was beaten and bruised just for being short and we agreed to never do that again.

People sign up during war time, not fully knowing what they’re getting themselves into. After going to that sale, I can fully relate to that.