Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Day After

I survived another Friday-after-Thanksgiving shopping excursion. My daughter reminded me we began this tradition 30 years ago, when she was only 11 years old. On the best of days, I do not like shopping in malls, so whatever possessed me to start such a tradition is beyond my memory and comprehension. Maybe that was the "martyr" stage of my life.

My daughter went to bed early so she would be fresh and bright for the early morning event, but she miscalculated the time difference and was up, showered and ready to go at 2:30 am. I had not gone to sleep until after midnight and, thus, did not have this problem. So, she napped and I slept on until 4:30.

At 5 am we joined the crowd outside a major department store then wound our way throughout and found goodies we could not be without. The only problem was these "goodies" were all for us - no gifts for family and friends. Time to move on!

Leaving that store, my daughter went in and out of almost every store while I moved from bench to bench down the aisle. She is a real bargain hunter, cutting out the newspaper coupons and figuring out which stores have the best deals.

The shopping certainly wasn't the highlight of the day for me, but the morning break for breakfast and the companionship were. In spite of the tired feet and aching back, it was a fun day and another to add to my stock of memories.

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