A Turkey at Target

Every year, millions of people across the country count down the days, hours, minutes until Thanksgiving. Oh, not because they want to see their family, or because they love themselves a turkey sandwich. No, these people are only hanging around with Uncle Bob and Cousin Eloise tracing their hands on construction paper and calling them turkeys to pass the time until Black Friday officially begins. They people want nothing more than to dash head first into the sales and specials that kick off the holiday shopping season, suspiciously unable to tell you exactly what it is they plan to buy for Uncle Bob or Cousin Eloise. I can only assume these are people with money to spend. Whether they plan to spend it on Christmas gifts or themselves, I'm unclear. Me myownself, I try to stay as far away from crowds of people ready to start a fist fight over the last iPad as possible, and with the possible exception of a 5am excursion to Wal-Mart one year, I spend the Friday after Thanksgiving locked in my house with the blinds down. Not unlike how I spend Halloween.

This year, my Thanksgiving began as most others, happily ensconced in a book and cut off from the world as we know it. At some point during the day, my mom called with news. "There are some nice sheets on sale at Target," she announced. This was good news indeed. I had asked for new sheets for Christmas, and these were 600 thread count in a ton of different colors. Plus, how much do we love Target? And because Black Friday no longer actually begins on Friday, she added "They open at 9pm tonight."

There was one problem. "But, you don't like to go out at night," I reminded her. This was not really news, and one assumes she was already aware, but it did seem relevant here.

"Oh, no, I thought you could go and get a set for each of us," she responded, as though this should have been obvious. Hmmm. Well, 9pm wasn't so bad. In my world, it's a whole lot better than 9 in the morning. And really, I don't need much of an excuse to go to Target. I probably wouldn't have chosen the beginning of Black Friday madness, but Target is Target. Maybe I would pass by the deal of the century, or maybe I would meet Prince Charming. Who knew? So I agreed.

My aversion to standing any longer than absolutely necessary delayed my departure until about 8:40. The store is less than 10 minutes away, there's plenty of parking, and I had no intention of being one of those people with my face up against the window, peering inside and leaving face prints on the windows. I arrived with time to spare and found a line wrapped around the front of the building. Traffic was being organized around a single entrance, and well-behaved shoppers patiently waited for the doors to open. I slowly made my way to the end of the line, hoping to arrive just in time for it to begin moving into the store. I found myself behind one person on the phone (because it's a great time to catch up on phone calls) and in front of another person trying to convince a child that they could get some candy, but they needed to look at televisions first (seems to me the kid was getting a good deal either way). It wasn't long before we crossed the threshold, and I made a bee-line for housewares.

How did people who got inside approximately 30 seconds before I did already have so much in their carts? There were stacks of electronics piled everywhere, even in the grocery aisles. People walked around with a big television box or with a stack of games piled in their cart. Glad that I didn't have to deal with that, I pushed my way through the crowds and finally made it to the shelves of all things domestic. Unfortunately, not before three other people, who had made themselves comfortable (one was sitting on the floor) comparing sheets, pulling them down and putting them back. Openly pleasant but silently making nasty comments, I scanned the shelves until I found the sale tags and located the sheets in question. Excellent. That was easy, as the Staples folks like to say (probably not while in a Target store, though). But now I had to pick colors. Mom wanted white, and I accomplished that with a long lean over to the right. But what should I get? There must have been 12 colors on the shelf, and the chick on the floor had already cleared a couple of them clean. If I didn't hurry, I was going to be getting white, too, but I'm nothing if not colorful. Red? Empty. Brown? Love it, but I've already got brown. Settling on purple--won't that be fun?--I reached up to the top shelf (isn't that always where the stuff a short person wants is?) and grabbed my purple sheets. The voices next to me began to get louder. I thought two women were arguing with each other over which sheets to get. Turns out, it was just woman on the phone. I squeezed my way past the woman with multiple personalities and headed for the checkout counters.

I knew it had been too easy. Despite the fact that the store had been open less than 10 minutes, every checkout line had a, well, line. A long one. I had no idea that a set of sheets in each hand would be so heavy. Clearly, I should have brought a bag. Twenty minutes later, I made it to the cashier. Who, as it turned out, absolutely loved my sheets. So much so that she spent the next 5 minutes telling me just that. That? Right there? That is why I do not participate in the phenomenon known as Black Friday.

Mission accomplished, I headed for my car. Overall, it wasn't a bad experience. I was not trampled, my feet did not hurt, and I made it home before 10pm. Not to mention that I now have a set of shiny purple sheets!