Black Friday Gold

I struck absolute gold this year on Black Friday.

The Setup:

Let's say you're at home on the Friday after Thanksgiving and, even though you spent the previous day running around town, enduring enjoying quality time with kith and kin, you have cabin fever.

You need to get out, even though your survival instinct is screaming at you to stay at home, on the couch, with a book a toddy and the cat - where it's safe.

The other instinct - the bad one that constantly nags at you to buy a Ducati...get a tattoo...fly to Rome for a gelato...tells you to breach your damn safe zone and join the rabid retail hordes storming Walmart.

There is a happy medium, an equilibrium, and I found it last week.

Go out on Black Friday. Go to a store, even, and spend money - but go grocery shopping.

On Friday I found myself in need of dog food, cat litter, a pipe plunger and eggs. There are no substitutes for two of those items...and then there are the eggs.

With fear in my heart and a screaming Lizard Brain, I braved ridiculous traffic, made it to the market, stepped hesitantly through creaking, automatic doors and found...peace. And quiet. Quiet and peace, save for Mariah Carey screeching about her Christmas list.

No one, and I mean not a single sentient being, was grocery shopping on Black Friday.
It. Was. Awesome.

Then I got brave. I thought, "What other chore can I accomplish that runs counter to Black Friday Lemming Fever?"

So I got my vehicle serviced. Drove right up to a bay without waiting - unlike a Saturday trip to the Jiffy Lube where by 7 a.m. you're the tenth car in line.

Granted, the market and mechanic's shop don't hold quite the same cache as Neiman Marcus and Macy's on The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year, but that trip got me out of the house - and back again, safely.

I believe 2010 is Year One of a new holiday tradition around Chez City!

Next year? Dry cleaning and shoe repair! I wonder if my dentist will be working....