My First Black Friday: "Save yourself" at Menard's

Keep this in mind.

There's never been a moment in my life when I've thought, "I can't wait until Black Friday."  Never.

Everything about it is diametrically opposed to my worldview and ethics:  rampant consumerism, bait-and-switch ploys that hamstring the economically impoverished, and - most importantly - early mornings.  Plus, large groups of people.  That's the deal-breaker for me.  I once abandoned a New Year's party in high school because the house - by my own estimation - was beyond capacity.  I pushed my way through a huddle of sophomores in the entryway like a salmon swimming upstream.  Keep this image in mind.  It will come around again.

So, I'm not sure what foolishness overtook me yesterday.  With some prodding and enticing from my brother-in-law after our Thanksgiving dinner, I agreed to go with he and his wife and my father-in-law to Menard's this morning.  Drew, my brother-in-law, waved his iPhone in front of me at the dinner table, complete with the Menard's 6-hour Black Friday promo.  Maybe it was the cordless tire compressor.  I could really use one of those.  Certainly, the barn door hardware was part of it.  $39.99!  50% off!  And, I really needed to get a ceiling vent for our bathroom.

Sensing my weakness, Drew threw his upper-cut.  "We can get Square Donuts" on our way.  I'm a sucker for donuts.  Every time.

We circled back to the topic of our Black Friday trip as we said our goodbyes for the night (Drew conscipiously avoiding the words "Black Friday" I now realize).  We agreed upon a time.  I'd pick my father-in-law up at 5:30 am.  We'd meet Drew and his wife at 5:50 and be in Terre Haute by 6:15.  I'd be eating donuts by 6:15 am.

The donuts is probably why I woke up ready to go at 4:30 am.  Definitely.

Sure enough, we get to Drew's house at 5:50 am.  His car is running, and we're back on 40 heading west bound while Brazil quietly rests.  There's hardly another car on the two west bound lanes, and we start joking about how we'll get there to find like ten people in the store - just a few retirees and insomniacs.

Just past Rose Holman I make some joke about the Terre Haute Air Show.  That was one of our last forays over this way, and it was a madhouse.  Traffic backed up for hours, poor planning, and - again - crowds:  all the makings for frustration.  How silly that was of us!  Man, I'll never make that same mistake again.  

Meanwhile, we were driving into a trap.  Everything was about to go sideways.

First of all, there was no Square Donuts.  Of all things, some family had the nerve to honor this cultural holiday by - you know - sleeping in ... and enjoying a quiet morning at home with their family.  I know this because I called the Square Donuts number and was told such.

No worries, though.  We were still in a jovial mood.  Pretty soon, we would be leisurely browsing the aisles of Menard's - picking up our two-pack of Stanley tape measures (25' & 30').  Pretty soon we'd be listening to the "save big money at Menard's" jingle in a cavernous retail store practically all by our lonesome.

This next thing is the best part.

We're approaching Menard's, but not quite there. Off to our right is a darkened retail store, one I had never previously noticed.  But for whatever reason, the entire parking lot was full.  Holly, Drew's wife, says, "That's funny.  Trader Buck's flea market sure looks busy, but the lights aren't on."

Then it hit us.  Trader Buck's wasn't busy.  Menard's was BUSY!  In fact, Menard's was so busy that not only was its parking lot already full, so was Verizon's and La Isla Mexican and Trader Buck's and the U-Haul drop-off place tucked back into the alleyway.

It was a trap!  But before we knew it, we were following a line of cars pulling into Menard's.  Dazed and confused,  Drew, who was driving, bypassed two customers pushing two over-loaded carts.  We nearly hit an Amish woman carrying an armload of Mason jars.  Eventually, after driving out to what I can only describe as the place where Clark Griswald parks the station wagon at Wally World, we realized we needed a plan.  Joe, Drew's dad, volunteered to drop us off.  He would sacrifice his Black Friday deals for us.  Heck of a guy that Joe Cooper.

But first, we drive past the front of the building.  I'm not sure why.  Someone said something about needing to see how long the lines were.  Unfortunately, we were duped it this moment.  The lines looked extremely reasonable.  So, Joe dropped Drew and me off.

The moment I set foot in the store, I knew we had a problem.  The place was teeming with people.  All the carts were gone.  And there was "caution" tap strewn about the front, directing the herds of customers through two designated checkout lines.

Drew and I regrouped in the tool section.  By this point, I literally could not think of any one single item I had planned to purchase.  Not a one.  I stared blankly at the tape measures in front of me.

Thankfully, Drew still had his iPhone and Black Friday promo.  I pulled up the pictures, recovering my wits and made a B-line for the cordless tire compressor.  I turned to Drew like a man desperate to avoid a coming plague or zombie acopalypse, "Where do you think the barn door hardware is?"  A man rolled a cart past me with what had to be a three foot slab of summer sausage.  Scores of people had oversized dog beds hanging over all sides of their carts.  I resorted to my salmon-swimming-upstream strategy.  I stuck to the side aisles, slipping through the masses gathered around the dog toy section.  Up in front of me - near where the barn door hardware was supposed to be - there was something resembling the beer line at a Colts' game.  I would discover only after what was causing this human whirlpool:  Menard's had dropped whole pallets of Chinese electronic items on its sales floor to lure its Black Friday shoppers into a feeding-frenzy of heavily discounted junk.  That is, of course, except for the barn door hardware.  That was a steal!

I made it out alive.  Never mind that Drew and I got separated.  He nearly got suckered into the 5-foot high blue-tooth speaker.  Thankfully, I pulled him out just in time, and I found a sales clerk.  "Where are the shop-vacs?  The ones in the promo," I called out over the blue-tooth record players.  "Down there, aisle 35," he replied.  "Look for the plywood section."  Naturally.

Now we came to a critical moment.  Up to this point, everything we had accumulated we could carry with our own two hands.  Shop-vacs, though, are large.  So are pancake air compressors for $74.99.  Same with rolling tool chests.

Drew put his stuff on top of the tower of shop-vac boxes.  I knew what he was looking for:  a cart.  Good luck with that!

I'm afraid to admit this, friends.  Here is your first peek into some of my darker recesses.  There I was in aisle 35 with my brother-in-law and the prospect of this casual morning turning into my final hour. I'm sad to say I could not be my brother's keeper.  "Drew, I'm going to go see if I can check out.  I'll be right back.  And I'll bring a cart if I find one."  That last part was definitely a lie.

I wove my way towards the front, hoping I'd find some lonely sales clerk with one of those Star Trek-like scanners, eager to check me out.  Ever the idealist.  Of course, nothing.  I looked around me and saw a sign pointing towards the appliances.  "Checkout line," it read with an arrow pointing back to some forelorn distant corner.

Do you know that part in A Christmas Story when Ralphie realizes the extent of his predicament - a Soviet-era bread-line stretching beyond sight?

Now I must tell the second awful thing about myself.

I saw a man struggling to keep command of his two carts near the fake Christmas trees.  A ten-foot gap opened between he and the two women in front of him.

Yes, I did precisely what you are thinking I did.  I was THAT guy.

But, I was also THAT guy who happened to be only forty feet from the checkout clerk.

Five minutes later, and I was unloading my meager gatherings (one cordless compressor, one box of barn door hardware, one pair fur-lined Thinsulate gloves, and one 50' Stanley Fatmax garden house.  The garden house was totally an impulse buy.)  Shell-shocked, I never even thought to look for the ceiling vent, the only item I truly needed.

I asked the two women in front of me what time they got there.

"2:30," they said.

"What!  Are you serious?  How much sleep did you get," I asked.

"Three hours."

"You're nuts," I said.

Says the guy who just cut two hundred people to buy an armful of goods.

And who never did get any donuts!

Yup, folks.  This is me.  And this is us.  Welcome to America.  Home of the Black Friday.

By the way, I just checked.  Barn door hardware.  $39.99 online.  Same price as I paid this morning.

Laughs and memories for next year's Thanksgiving, though:  priceless.

Wes