Early To Rise

I work at a mall.  Take a guess what I did for Black Friday.

By some miracle last year I was off the day after Thanksgiving, but this year we were advised that EVERY Customer Service desk associate would be working today.  The mall officially opened its doors at 6 AM, although many of the stores welcomed customers at midnight.  My shift started at 6:30, and was over five hours later.

When the alarm went off at 4:00 I was NOT ready to roll out of bed.  It hadn't been a restful night.  I had trouble getting to sleep, then woke up when Hubby Tony fed the cats at 10, when he came to bed an hour later,  and again when the kids got home from their Thanksgiving after-party.  In addition, I'd drank too much liquid later in the night, which led to the inevitable result of multiple trips to the bathroom.  Even Pepper the cat was part of the conspiracy. He's very antisocial and had made himself scarce as soon as our Thanksgiving company arrived.  But he decided at 3:00 that he'd like some attention, walking over me until I rolled over to the very edge of the mattress. 

It was cold and dark when I made it down to the kitchen, and so early the newspaper hadn't been delivered yet; there was nothing to read while I ate my breakfast.  I had to navigate a minefield of Thanksgiving leftovers in the refrigerator to get a container of yogurt from the back.  I added fruit and ground flax seed to the yogurt, ate the healthy dish, then followed it up with one of daughter-in-law Nicole's homemade sourdough cinnamon rolls.

I figured traffic wouldn't be a problem on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I was right.  Getting into the mall's parking area was easy, and I was in the building with 20 minutes to spare.  I spent the time walking around looking at the store displays and watching the people who were crazy enough to come out shopping so early in the morning.

The mall was doing a Black Friday gift-with-purchase promotion, so I spent my shift handing out premiums to shoppers who'd met the requirements.  At first we had a rush of people who'd been waiting for us to open.  That was followed by a lot of dead time, punctuated by short bursts of activity.  About a half hour before the promotion ended people started lining up, and the remainder of the shift was a frenzy of activity.

When I left the mall parking was at a premium, and I had to stop for five different cars who were waiting for someone to vacate a parking space.  The line to get into the mall stretched a couple of blocks on the main street.  I was glad my shift was over and I could go home and take a nap.