The Black Friday Chaos

Well to start off I told myself I was not going to be one of those crazy people getting up at 0'dark thirty just to save while beating people to the punch and standing in rediculously long lines. After telling myself that, I reluctantly decided I was going to go to JoAnn's Friday morning in hopes to save some money on a project I'm working on for Christmas. I was only going there and I was going early enough that hopefully I would not have to stand in line so long. I made the mistake though, of opening up the newspaper Thanksgiving day to check out the "deals". Why???????? Of course the words "sale" and "Best Buy" tend to do something to a person's brain (me) and I get curious. Mistake! Next thing I knew I was planning my morning out and how on earth I was going to be able to get what I wanted, how I was going to make the opening on time to each place, and weighing out whether or not it would be worth it. I ended up getting up at 4:30 am to make it to Wal-mart by 5am to get what I wanted, get in a line as fast as possible and check out before I had to be to JoAnn's by 6am just to find that even with only 6 people in front of me, I ended up waiting in line longer than the entire time I was in Walmart, with that many more people mind you. Then on the drive home, I got to thinking about my receipt from Walmart and realized I got charged more than the "deal" I thought I went for. So before 8 am I strolled in to walmart yet again, only this time to stand in line at the return booth to get a price adjustment. Then come to find out that the product I bought was not the exact product on sale (difference only being the box!) so I just about had every manager called up and customers next to me on my side analyzing the "deal" between the ad and the product in hand. Can I tell you I was so frustrated after that, even though they fixed it for me, that I had to go home and have a nap. I'm not so sure I will do that again, but every year seems to suck me in! What the heck!!!