Halt the Lame!

We made it! My friend Barb and I managed our yearly Black Friday trek this morning, and, surprising enough, it was fairly sane. There were a few reasons for this:

A. Neither of us have money. (Yeah, I know–join the rest of America.)

B. We were going to ToysRUs for specific people on our list–for the first time in three years, not ALL of our children were getting a lot of stuff from ToysRUs. Big T and Chicken were getting most of their stuff from other places. Her daughter is getting a big gift somewhere else (ruff!) so she was mostly shopping for her son and stepson.

C. We’ve sort of got this thing down by now– yee-freaking-ha for us!

D. My foot hurt. And my arm hurt. Because I’m old and have ituses, that’s why! (Tendonitis, fascaeitus, over-forty-itus). Seriously, in the middle of Target I realized I had maxed out my available funds (it wasn’t hard, trust me) and that my foot hurt. So I checked out, ordered her a coffee and me a water, knit for a while, and when she was done we sat down and talked for half an hour–and actually visited, which we never get to do during these things. In spite of the incredible deals I think I got at Toys-R-Us, and the fact that (her protests to the contrary) I thought she was about to throw down with the blonde family who cut in front of us and pretended they didn’t, the talking was my favorite part. (Of course, if she HAD decided to throw down, I would have waded in. We would have had plenty of time to talk in county lock-up, but, as I pointed out to her, decidedly less money to spend on the children. She told me she had no intention of throwing down, but she hadn’t slept in three days and was pissed at the Toys-R-Us people for being assholes about the insane fucking lines, so I don’t know if she saw herself as clearly as I did. She was a little psycho.)

So yes–poverty halted the lame, but the lame went gracefully. A little visit was infinitely worth the fact that I’ll be returning to the madness in a week. It is the season for friends and family, and although I’ve never told her this, THAT’S the reason I brave the crowds, the thrown elbows, the redneck line-cutters and tiredness every Black Friday. It’s our day–and I’m thankful that the lame was halted–I got to sit down and share it with her. Yay!

And then I came home and took a nap and woke up in time to… do nothing. Absolutely nothing. I sat down and watched television and knitted and went in to watch television with the little ones and nap and came back to watch television and knit…
Yeah, I know– poor me! I seriously haven’t done that in a LOOOOONNNNGGG time. I couldn’t do it every day, but some days, it sure is a balm to the soul–and the sole, since the reason I didn’t come home and do dishes was the same reason I didn’t wander another store for no good reason. My foot hurt. It’s weird how much that massive inconvenience seemed to be a blessing today, isn’t it? Of course, tomorrow when I’m screaming at the kids to do dishes it won’t seem so cool, but tonight? I’m good, baby. I’m good.