Felt like a dream, but it wasn't...

This morning at 3:30, dylan woke up and so I had to rock him back to sleep. That took about 45min. When I went to go back to bed, I thought, "Hey, I'm awake already, why don't I just go get a little shopping done." (Oh and my alarm clock just went off too.) SO...I did. Well, I tried! The stores opened at five and I just wanted two things. Surely that wouldn't be so difficult. Slip right in, grab those two items and slip right out. I'd be back in bed in 30 min. top! Well, when I pulled into the desired store. (Starts with Wal and ends in Mart) The parking lot was PACKED. On the way, I noticed lines at target, sears, and best buy, so I was expecting there to be a line at WalMart. So when I reached the parking, my hopes were lost because no line was to be seen and thought, "there's no way they stocked enough camera's and dvd players for me to "slip right in and grab one" and SHOULD'VE turned around and gone home then. But the pull of the shopping and more so, the curiousity drove me deeper into the parking lot. I actually found a decent spot and ventured in. Of course the first thing I see are people, people, carts, and more people! In all the years of my shopping at 4am, I've never seen this! WOW! They/we were packed in their like cockroaches in a sugar bowl. People were climbing over others, One woman (I heard by a friend of mine that I happened to see) was pushed down in the crowd as they stampeded into it once the doors were opened. At one point I was stuck... boxed in by a bunch of carts! And then I hit gridlock at the corner of photo developing, electronics, and housewares. I couldn't move! Mind you...I had NO cart. That would've interferred with my "slip in and slip out" mission. I was finally able to make it to the photo counter and ask where the camera's were. He pointed not 20 ft. away and it took me 5 min. to get there. ONLY to find that the "display box" which held them was completely crushed to the floor by the many hundreds of feet that continued to crushing it. My next venture was for the dvd player but had NO IDEA what direction to even go. SO, I let the crowd take me. It was like being swept away in a current of water. It wasn't even worth fighting against the grain. I ended up at the front of the store and thought well...since I'm already here, I need oil for the car, and started that crusade in that direction. I did make it there and was on my way back to the front when a man with an arm full of dvd players passed by. I inquired to its whereabouts and he said, "frozen food isle". Oh...lovely. That was on the others side of the store. Knowing full well that there wasn't going to be any left, I still continued on. BUT this time, avoiding the "crowded isles" and detoured throught the smaller ones. I did make it, but as was expected, to nothing but people loaded with carts. The thought then came to me, "what would happen if there was a fire alarm? I definitely didn't want to be here at that time." (That had to be against a fire safety code, I would think.) So I took my oil and headed to check out. Seeing the lines, I opted to set it in some random place and come back later. I didn't want to wait 30 min. just to buy a $3.00 quart of oil. I drove back home and went back to sleep. Empty handed of course. And that is just fine with me. It gave me the reminder, that I get every year I do this, that some things just aren't as important and others. My two littlest ones were in my bed waiting for me to snuggle up to and fall back to sleep.

Are there any of you out there that join in the chaos on "Black friday"? What crazy things have you seen or heard about?

*note: my mom was here with the kids for those of you who may have wondered why a mother would leave her children alone. Not this one.