Here Turkey, Turkey!

I once had a teacher that told us the turkey is the dumbest animal alive. Sometimes she would tell us to stop acting like turkeys and think things through before we did them. I should have followed that advise last Friday! :o) My sister really wanted a laptop computer. She found out that Circuit City had them for sale for $300 on Black Friday. Alas, there is no Circuit City near her home in Lebanon, PA, so she convinced her little sister to try and get one for her. I have gone Black Friday shopping every year for the past 4 or 5 years and I actually enjoy it. But, my usual practice is start at about 4AM when the first store on my list opens and systematically work my way through until I get all (or at least most) of the items I'm wanting. I knew that some people go really early and wait in line for stores to open to get some of the big ticket items. I thought, hmmm..a laptop computer...I'll have to start out early. So, I convinced my friend, Leora to come with me and we set out at Midnight Thursday night. On the way down we laughed about how silly we were to be out that early. "We'll just sit in the van and keep warm until the crowds start coming" we nievely said. Then, we pulled into the parking lot at Circuit City. After much searching, I FINALLY found a parking space. The line was already half around the building!! I could hardly believe it! But, we came prepared...we had our coats, a scarf, some gloves, blankets and folding chairs. "We'll just settle in and visit and wait for the store to open. How bad can it be?" "Brrr....it's so c-c-c-old...only 4 more hours...??? We can do that, right?" We knew it was cold, we didn't find out until much later that it had gotten down to about 17*. We took turns defrosting in the van, but we never did truely warm up until much later in the morning when we finally got down the business of REALLY shopping. Anyway, we finally made it to 5AM when the store would open. Time to get that laptop, right? WRONG! After all we were about 40th in line and they only had 12 laptops!!! Poor Laurie...I tried! But wait...apparently the Pennsylvanians are not as determined as the Arkansawyers...Laurie got up at 4AM and went to Staples to wait in line (they had a deal on a laptop as well). Believe it or not, she got it! After I had treated my frostbitten toes and thawed out my nose...I decided that next year I would REALLY be prepared: propane heater, extra thick blankets, hot chocolate in a thermos....WHAT AM I SAYING??? I think I'll just go back to arriving at the stores when they open and leave the waiting in line for the real professionals! :o)