Shopping late on Thanksgiving Eve

[fenchurch]

Which is apparently now a holiday, judging by how many places were closed and the fact that all the kids in the area had today off school. When did the four day weekend turn into a five day weekend, anyway?

To the shopping weirdness... we realized rather late tonight that we could use a few odds and ends for tomorrow: some twine for the turkey, some Crisco, a lightbulb for the kitchen, and a tablecloth long enough to fit the makeshift table we're planning to use. So, I headed over to Fred Meyer, which I assumed would have all of those things... it's one of those everything type stores: huge, with groceries and all the sorts of stuff you would find at a Wal-Mart or K-Mart.

I knew I was in trouble when I walked in and there were FIFTEEN people lined up to use the U-Scan... I figured it was likely that while I was shopping, the "rush" would clear out and it wouldn't be too bad, so I start trying to hunt down what I need. First off, no twine. Anywhere. Okay, fine... I picked up a package of bamboo skewers and figured we could improvise. They had the lightbulb I needed and absolutely no Crisco, so I headed for the tablecloths.

Now, what I really want to know is who had the bright idea, the night before Thanksgiving, to complete block the aisle containing the Thanksgiving tablecloths, placemats, napkins and placesettings, with huge pallets of things waiting to be shelved. None of the aisles around it were blocked, just that one and it was completely impossible to even clearly see a tablecloth, let alone pick one up. Grrrr.

So I figured I'd buy the stuff I'd been able to find and we could improvise the rest... only the U-Scan lines? Still had close to 15 people in them and there were only two other registers open, with nearly as many people waiting there too. It's the friggin' *night before Thanksgiving* and they apparently didn't think there would be a huge rush of customers. D'oh!

I abandoned my basket and swung back by the house to pick up rackham so we could try Wal-Mart (about twenty minutes away). Only when we finally got there we discovered that they'd closed at 6:00pm for the Thanksgiving holiday. Wha?!?!? There's no "Thanksgiving Eve" holiday! Why in the world would they close THAT early?!?! Did I miss a memo somewhere?

We then decided to take the "back road" (still a fairly major throughway) over to Top Foods in Woodinville, thinking we could at least look for the twine and the Crisco. This took longer than it should have, though, since the road we were on was blocked at one point by *ten* police cars, lights flashing. No, I still have no clear idea what happened. There was a news crew out, but I couldn't see what station, and none of the local news websites have anything about it. Very weird. I don't know that I've ever seen that many police cars like that... and they certainly weren't needed to block the road (they were completely ringing the small area, like they were trying to build a fort out of cars). We did see a bus of some sort, diagonally across the road, and at least one smashed up car. I can't imagine they'd need that many cops for even a multiple car accident though (and it certainly wouldn't have warranted television news coverage).

Finally to Woodinville at the ONLY 24 hour grocery store anywhere near us... and they've just gone up about 8,000 points in my book. They had plenty of Crisco. We asked a guy out stocking the meat section if there was any twine and he went back into the butcher block and cut us some, no charge. They even had the 40 watt indoor halogen floodlight bulb we needed! And, surprisingly, they had a nice looking 60x90 tablecloth on sale for $14.99 (I had no clue they even carried tablecloths... it was in their seasonal section).

What a night!

Comments

[elsaf]

I think the closing early thing has more to do with creating more hype for the big re-opening Friday morning -- early Friday morning. Wal-Mart is opening at 5 a.m. here Friday. (Not that I'm going to get up at 4 a.m. to go shopping.)

There's a bit rivalry between Wal-Mart and Target for the day-after-Thanksgiving shoppers. Target is opening at 6 a.m.

Personally, I'd rather be strapped to a board and forced to watch Charmed than go shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I make a point of avoiding all retail venues on that day.

I had to do a bit of minor shopping yesterday morning. (The cider I was counting on for my sweet potato dish had gone hard in the refrigerator.) The market was the seventh circle of hell. And that was a small, independent fruit market, not a chain grocery store. I wasn't brave enough to venture into Kroger or Farmer Jack's. :-)

[mirandaflynn.livejournal.com]

"Personally, I'd rather be strapped to a board and forced to watch Charmed than go shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving."

Now *that's* hardcore :)