No escape

My goal in life this time of year is always to escape the madness of Black Friday.
Call me a chump but I would rather pay full price for something than stand in long lines with angry people who want to save a buck or two.
I happily sleep in right past all the doorbuster specials and avoid the craziness.
Except this year I slipped up.
My daughter and I went out mostly to check on the new stores at the Traverse Mountain Outlets and skimmed on by without purchasing anything that made us have to wait for checkout.
However, I saw this one top at Kohl's that I kinda liked and I've been looking for a holiday top.
We didn't buy it when I saw it because the lines were absolutely horrendous and I just wasn't sure if it was what I wanted.
It was all shiny and red and fancy — exactly what I needed for the Christmas parties coming up.
I decided that after I dropped Kari off at home so I circled back thinking it couldn't take that long to buy one thing and I had time.
So I picked it up and tried it on. It fit. It was 50 percent off and I had this little $10 promotional gift card.
So I started to try to find the end of the line. It wasn't where I thought it was.
I loped to the back of the store and over toward the west side of the store and back up to the front again.
I found the end and seriously considered bagging the whole idea.
But I knew the front registers were going as fast as they could so I figured, five or six registers going full speed, the line would surely move along at a good pace.
I got in line.
I waited patiently.
One hour later, the guy in front of me was wearing out my patience. He had a table thingy and a pile of towels that he just slid along in front of him. His pile was unbalanced so he didn't move any more often than he had to. I decided I hated him.

And I noticed the line would swell as we went as people who had been off shopping came back to join their friends who'd been standing.
So as we neared the end, the line got much wider and took longer.
It also came to a dead stop as people who reached the registers wanted unreasonable things, like a different style, color or price. I harbored angry feelings towards them as well.
I noticed all around me there were items people had thrown overboard as they gave up waiting, dolls and sweaters and underwear they decided not to buy.
I finally got my top, $44 at 50 percent off with another 15 percent off and my $10 gift card, it came to $10.05 after I stood in line for an hour and 15 minutes.
I'm happy with it but in retrospect I'm thinking the price was too dear.