No More Black Fridays at Wal-Mart for Me

Hi Everyone!

I know I’ve been missing from the blogosphere lately and I apologize. All I can say is I’m very sorry to leave you all hanging. This past month has been very challenging for me and for my family, but we hope that the New Year brings lots of promising changes.

Thanksgiving was great and busy for us, as usual, because we have three places to visit within the same day. You know what that means, right? Overstuffed bellies and discomfort for the remainder of the night. However, with me being a crazy Black Friday shopper, that meant discomfort, extreme fatigue from consuming far too much tryptophan AND this overwhelming need to snag some Black Friday deals – which I did.

Now, to give you all fair warning, this post has some derogatory statements in it, as well as some mild profanity. If you prefer to steer clear of profanity, violence and angry comments, then you may wish to avoid reading the rest of this post. Now, for those of you that love hearing the juicy details, please…read on.

Completely out of character, I went to Wal-Mart – and I’m not being sarcastic because I NEVER go to Wal-Mart on Black Friday. Ever. Yet, somehow I thought that I surely wouldn’t have a repeat of my last “Black Friday at Wal-Mart” experience, so I went ahead and went, even though I knew that I would somehow regret it. There I was, pulling into a full parking lot at Wal-Mart at 10pm on Thanksgiving night (because, as you all know, that’s when the sales began this year).

The trip started out fair enough. I went alone, got a killer parking spot about 4 spaces from the entry in the center aisle, I remembered to grab a cart from the parking lot so that I would have one and caught a few great deals down the back aisle (an awesome game for $3.88, Cars pajama set for my son for $4, a few sweatshirts for $4 or less and some super cheap DVDs). Everything was going spectacular…and then it happened.

My son is crazy for Disney Pixar’s Cars gear, so when I saw a pallet of Cars 2 Racetrack sets sitting in the middle of the back aisle, I thought I would check them out to see how much they were. The crowd was horrible and there was no way I could swerve in, so I had to take two steps away from my cart to grab one.

- Enter white trash mom and daughter. Both were wearing dirty looking flannel coats with old t-shirts underneath, skin tight faded jeans and yellowed tennis shoes. Their hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a few days and their cheeks and teeth looked as if they were the proud owners of a meth lab that they sampled the products of far too frequently. Let me clarify that I am not calling them white trash due to their appearance alone, but due to a combination of appearance and their gleaming personality.  *I reserve the right to change the classification from white trash to a lower classification if I can think of something more appropriate at a later date.*

My hand never left my cart while I was grabbing that toy, which took all of two seconds. But,while I was grabbing that toy, white trash mom and daughter came along and not only shoved my cart as I was leaning back to cart pushing position, but then actually called me a “f***ing retard”.

So, there I was in Walmart, tired as all get out, a sick kid and significant other at home, disappointed because I didn’t have a lot to spend and fighting off a cold, but having a fairly decent trip -  and then these two crazy ladies want to come along and ruin it for me? I DON’T THINK SO!

Now, a little late to foreshadow, but I grew up poor. My mom and dad divorced when I was around five years old, which left my mom, me, my sister and brother living on one income. We were still attending private school because my mom and dad agreed to continue it until it became too expensive, but it was clear that we were from the wrong side of the tracks and a lot of the rich kids reminded us of that. We had some nice things, but we usually picked them up at yard sales or our grandparents bought them for us. The thing is, when you grow up poor, you usually learn how to throw down for what you want or what you believe in. At this particular moment, I firmly believed that I was ready to throw down.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the fact that I was already stressed out since our family had to squeeze three Thanksgivings into a six hour period of time or maybe it was because a little bit of the old me just couldn’t let that comment ride. Whatever it was, I fired back and felt the adrenaline rush flow through me. Oh…it’s been a LONG time. 

“F***ing retard, huh?” I yelled.

She turned around, seemed a little shocked that I had heard her, and then promptly formed another pathetic comment, “Yeah, you f***in’ whore! That’s what I said, you got sumpin to say ’bout it?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her. I mean, come on! Whore? Really? I was dressed in a very nice, thick brown sweater with a tank top underneath because the sweater has more of a plunging neckline than I’m comfortable with, a pair of jeans that fit me without making me look like a sausage link and a pair of brown boots. My hair was pulled back into a low pony tail and I was wearing my “Mother” necklace, earrings and a ring on each finger. I looked stylish – like I probably had some cash, but I was far from trashy or whorish looking. If she was going to say something about me, as a person, she could have thought of something a lot better than that. After all, the truth is often what hurts the most. She could have mentioned that I looked tired, since my eyes were beet-red; or possibly even the fact that I’ve got a big ass, but to choose such a far-reaching insult only let me know what I was working with – - an idiot.

“Yeah, I do have something to say about it,” I started, “You’re pathetic. You can’t even come up with an insult that’s worthy, but you want everyone to think you’re tough s***, don’t you? How dare someone get in your way for two seconds, right? Well, you messed with the wrong chick today.”

And, just as I had suspected, the mom jumped in…”Look here you little slut…”

At which point I interjected with, “Oh look, white trash mommy wants to step in to save little trailer park Barbie’s behind. Well, the spirit of the holidays just never ends, does it?”

We were drawing an even bigger crowd as the daughter stepped up to me and patted her chest like a sparring monkey. “Come on, do something,” she said, “do something or I will!”

It took me all of a second to decide what to do, “You’re not worth the bail or the $35 worth of stuff that’s in my cart, but I bet that meth dealer you’re sleeping with tells you that all the time.”

She looked hurt for a second and then her eyes squinted with anger,”That’s it. Let’s go!” She said and formed what I’m going to call an unusual and very inexperienced boxer stance. “Come on. Come on, you f***in’ b**** – I’m gonna kick your ass!” she said.

This girl had to be ten years younger than me, six inches shorter and about 40 pounds lighter. I had sized her up the second she fired off the comment that spurred the whole incident. Yet, had she been six foot tall and bulletproof, I doubt I would have been able to keep my mouth shut.

So, there we were. I scanned the crowd to see if any officers were present. None. No employees were visible either. Great. The large, older man a few steps to her right had a big grin on his face and, as I made eye contact with him, he nodded to me as if to say, “You’ve got this, sweetie,” but I already knew I did.

I reached in my cart, grabbed my purse and threw it over my shoulder and then I took two quick steps towards her and…she freaked out, jumped backed quickly and fell backwards into the display behind her. They both promptly hit the tile, bouncing off a few shoppers on the way down.

With her daughter on the ground surrounded by what was left of the Energizer battery display, the mom just stood there and said nothing. All I could do was laugh, as did everyone else around us. But I wasn’t done. I had to get that one last comment in. “Happy Holidays!” I said, with a huge grin and a couple of uncontrollable laughs, and I plopped my purse back into my cart and wheeled past her and on towards the next deal. As Ashton Kutcher would say, “She got punk’d!”

So, without a single punch thrown, I won my fight. I felt good about it, too, especially after crossing paths with her and her mother later in the store without incident. The bad thing? My kids weren’t with me, but I felt like my participation made me a little bit worse of a mom. I mean, had punches been thrown, I would have had to come up with bail money, lost my kids Christmas presents that were in my cart and likely had to tell my kids why mommy didn’t come home that night. What was I thinking? We don’t have the money for that crap!

That said, I’ve decided that I’m not going to be visiting Wal-Mart on Black Friday for a very long time, if ever again. I just don’t have the patience to deal with the idiots that show up there and I’m not going to risk my time, energy and possibly my family’s money on potential incidents with them anymore. Heck, there was a chick with pepper spray at another Wal-Mart – now I can guarantee that if I would have been pepper sprayed by some nut that I would have been in jail because that would have REALLY pissed me off. So I think it’s best for me to steer clear of Walmart on Black Friday from now on.

Now that you’ve heard my Black Friday horror story, let’s hear yours!