After Thanksgiving Sales: A Tale of Validation

Sometimes you just need a little bit of good, solid validation. Because sometimes, even though you also have made a short list of items to purchase during the After Thanksgiving Sale at Best Buy, it's just not enough to make getting up at 5:00 a.m. -- or earlier, if you're a True Crazy -- on a holiday worth it.

And so, at 10:30 Thanksgiving night, we drove through the dark, empty streets of Muncie searching for our validation.

First we went to Best Buy where we were not disappointed. The parking lot was packed and a line of very eager shoppers -- True Crazies, if I may -- were already wrapping themselves around the building. And they were not empty handed: they'd come with tents, lawn chairs, blankets, and a Siberian Tundra's worth of coats, hats, mittens, and scarves. We chuckled as we drove past them -- those poor, crazy people, anxious and shivering.

"I'm starting to feel like it's just not worth it to get up early tomorrow," I told Blake. He readily agreed.

But our search for validation would not be complete without a visit to Circuit City. Our drive of just one block west of busy Best Buy topped us off. There, too, were hoards of True Crazies bracing themselves against a cold six hour wait -- only these people didn't bring their tents. We chuckled again as we drove slowly past.

"Well, I think we can sleep in tomorrow," said Blake.

"Yes, let's," I said.

And so we drove home and brushed out teeth and curled up under our warm covers. We slept soundly; we had our validation. And we didn't truly climb out of bed until about 10:00 Friday morning.

When we did, though, we decided that, heck, why not venture to Best Buy? After all, we'd gotten our sleep. And the True Crazies had probably gone home. And $10 computer speakers and a $3 DVD would definitely be worth a peek inside, even if the likelihood of there being any left was slim.

Only apparently the odds were not too slim after all. We found our $10 computer speakers sitting happily on a shelf with about 10 others, and we swiped a $3 copy of Big Fish from a cart of abandoned and otherwise misplaced DVDs. We were in and out in about 7 minutes. Record time. And we chuckled again as we walked out of the store, desired purchases in hand. Because talk about validation! We have become living proof that sometimes you really can sleep in on the day after Thanksgiving AND check off the items on an After Thanksgiving Sale shopping list.