Turkey and Traffic

We had a great Thanksgiving. My grandmother lives in Knoxville, TN so we took the kids up to see her for Thursday and Friday. Of course, after 2 days with us, she was worn out, but she was glad we came.



The biggest surprise of the weekend.....My husband woke up at 5:15 to go shopping with me Friday morning! Now, this is a tradition that I don't usually take part in. However, there were 2 really good deals that I wanted to get too. So, we left our kids sleeping (with my mom) and took off a little before 6am. This being Kyle's first Day-After-Thanksgiving Shopping trip, he was amazed at the number of people already on the road. We were moving at the speed limit, however, until we saw the sign that read "West Hills Exit.....3 miles" The traffic volume suddenly increased by about 200 cars and we realized that the exit 3 miles away was the mall. Luckily, we weren't headed to the mall. No one would be at our stores, we thought.



Kyle dropped me off at the local JoAnn, etc. store while he went next door to Best Buy. I expected him to return in an hour or so, but after 30 minutes he was back.



He told me of the line that wrapped itself around the sidewalk, through the parking lot and over to the next store, in the pouring rain. All people waiting to get into Best Buy.



"I'll just go when we leave here," he decided.



Wrong. 1 1/2 hours later, we left JoAnn's and headed next door. There were still at least 200 people in line waiting to be let in. Still standing in the rain, still cold.



What makes people do this? Granted, I was one of the crazy people up at the break of dawn to get a bargain. But, I would not sleep in my car the night before, or stand in a line that would take longer than a couple of minutes to get through. Is it really worth that to save a few bucks? Guess that's a personal decision, but my thought is, probably not.



Kyle won't be repeating his shopping trip next year. That's one tradition he'd rather not start.