Black Friday Shopping With Cousin Sindi
Note: The names of people have been changed purely for my amusement, not because they requested to have it changed to something “cool” or “hip” *cough*CousinSindi*cough*
Let me start this thing off by saying that as soon as I got home to type it, I immediately changed into my blogging pants. Oh yes, I broke out the Bloggers. What are they exactly? Well, they’re a pair of super comfy and heavy sweats from Walmart that I bought off of my brother for $10. And they have cargo pockets. I only break them out when I’m gonna be doing some intense bloggage. I suggest you sit down, and prepare your hearts and minds for this tale of holiday joy.
First, let me introduce you to Cousin Sindi. Cousin Sindi is about a year older than I am, and she cuts hair for people. I think she also does back and body waxes, but I’m not 100% sure. That may have just been a rumor I started. I know for sure that I mentioned a few times that she specializes in the removal of feminine mustaches. And we’re not talking “peach fuzz” face hair, we’re talking Tom Selleck mustaches. On women. Eww. Oh yeah, she also has 2 kids and a husband person. But for the purposes of this real-life story, the second kid is the only important one. Her name is Kaylie, and she’s 6ish weeks old.
Ahem.. It all started on a Friday evening in November…. This wasn’t no ordinary Friday, mind you. This was the Friday. This was just non-color-specific Friday. It was the legendary Black Friday. *dun dun dun duuuuun*
I was doing my usual sit-in-Starbucks-and-try-to-study-on-Friday-evening-because-I-have-a-less-than-booming-social-life thing, when I got a random phone call from Cousin Sindi. I answer with my usual “Whaddup Cousin Sindi” to which she responded with a very serious and extrovertedly happy “what are you doing right now?” I said, and this is almost a direct quote, “I’m sitting in Starbucks studying because I have a less than booming social life on Friday evenings. I’ve only been here about 3 hours too.” After she was done grasping the fact that what I said was incredibly true, she said something about her and her husband having other family members over to her house to eat brisket and to see their new ginormous safe. Then there was the catch: I had to leave right away. I guess she wanted my expert shopping skills to help her pick out food at Walmart. I find that very ironic considering how I am literally the worst person to take grocery shopping. I dislike most food. I can run through Walmart and buy a weeks worth of food in 13 minutes. Trainer Jarrod and I timed it a few days ago. It’s a proven fact. But I decide to go, because lets face it, I wasn’t doing anything better… Other than studying in an attempt to further my education. But who needs that? Psh, whatevs.
So I go to Cousin Sindi’s house and we get in the car to leave. Oh, she also decides to take baby Kaylie with her. Why wants to take a baby to Walmart, I have no idea. It’s not like she can do tricks yet to show off to people or anything. Seriously, baby Kaylie just sleeps and poops. If we wanted to watch that for entertainment, we’d go hang out in nursing homes. At least the geriatric community can stand up while sleeping and pooping simultaneously. This kid still can’t even hold her head up.
I’m getting off track again. So Cousin Sindi, baby Kaylie and I get in the car and off we go to Walmart at 6pm on Black Friday.
We arrive at the Walmart and it was pretty well cleared out, thankfully. I didn’t wanna watch Cousin Sindi go all Jackie Chan on everyone just to get first dibs on the Suave shampoo. We all know how loco hairdressers can get…Actually, now that I think about it, that would’ve been really funny to watch. Dang it. Ok, maybe next year.
We get inside, only 40 feet into the store at that, and what does Cousin Sindi do? She goes straight for this crockpot thing. She makes a b-line to it, and I’m like, “yo, Cousin Sindi, put that down. You already have two of them, and we came here to buy food. Not stuff to fix it in.” So she reluctantly puts it down and we continue in the opposite way of the food side of the store. Then it suddenly hits me, this was all a trap. Cousin Sindi didn’t want me to come along for my expert food opinions, she wanted a shopping buddy! Of all the low things to do to a guy… Luckily for her, I like to shop. Oops. I can’t believe I just admitted that. Crap. Next I’ll be saying how I like to watch Grey’s Anatomy and Safe Haven. Noooooo! I need to stop!
Umm… So I did some manly things at Walmart… Well, not during this trip. But during other trips I did manly things. I bought these super manly wool socks to keep my feet warm in the winter while I trudge/frolic through the snow. With gloves. They didn’t even match! That’s how manly it was. Ah who am I kidding? Anyway…
We start walking down the wrapping paper and Christmas section, which is where the Lawn and Garden area is during the summer. Cousin Sindi starts grabbing wrapping paper, and then she’s talking about needing to buy matching ribbon for it.. I was always under the impression that if you wrapped the present right you wouldn’t need the ribbon to hold it shut… But apparently I was wrong. But then it got weird. Cousin Sindi was all like “I need classic Christmas colors to match this wrapping paper.” So naturally, I suggest the most classic colors of all that match everything, I said “how about the red, white, and blue ribbon? That’s classic.” That’s when Cousin Sindi informed me that I had my holidays mixed up….again. She wanted red ribbon, but not normal red ribbon. I said red was classic because it was like vampire blood, which everyone seems to be into nowadays. Nope, the blood-red ribbon wasn’t good enough either. I think she went with this yellow or greenish color. I’m not really sure… I was in and out of coherent-ness after that. It was a Christmas-colored blur filled with baby clothes.
We eventually migrate to a center isle where Cousin Sindi is looking at the “great” deals with the As-Seen-On-TV stuff. I got distracted looking at baby Kaylie, who was sound asleep with a pacifier that she kept spitting out. That’s when I realized that the game was on. Baby Kaylie would spit the pacifier out, and I would shove it back in. Then she would spit it out again, and I would shove that sucker back in. It was an epic, endless battle of Adam versus 6 week old. Over and over and over again, spit out, put it back, spit it out, almost catch it mid-air, quickly put it back, back and forth it went…. Well, it was endless until Cousin Sindi stopped us. Apparently, you’re supposed to clean pacifiers off after they fall on the floor repeatedly. Ugh. How was I supposed to know? I thought it was clean. We were in Walmart on Black Friday evening for crying out loud, not a cattle ranch! Goodness. And some dirt might help build up that lil’ boogers immune system. There wasn’t even that much dirt on it. Well, I think it was dirt anyway. It looked like dirt, but I’ve never seen dirt that smelled quite like that…
So we trudge on, through the store of moderately good deals…We go through the electronics, sporting goods, paint stuff, baby clothes, back through the electronics again. Throughout this entire trip, one thing remains the same: We keep ending up in the friggin’ baby clothes. Oh, and FYI, in the baby section they have gloves. Not normal gloves, mind you. These are baby-sized and say “one size fits all”, and one size most certainly does not fit all. I tried them on, I tried on several pairs and none of them fit. Why would they make baby gloves that say “one size fits all” and then have them not fit all? It makes no sense to me. Maybe I could win a lawsuit for false advertising. I could barley get that stupid glove over 3 of my 4 good fingers. They fit baby Kaylie just fine. Actually, they were a little big on her. So technically, they didn’t fit her either. However, it did hold her pacifier really well. Maybe they should advertise it as a “one size fits all” pacifier holder. Oh, and I think I got most of the fuzzies off before I put it back in her mouth… You gotta be careful with the insides gloves, you never know where people’s hands have been. That’s how germs and disease gets spread.
Finally, after what seems like the 7th time through the same isle of baby clothes we make it to the food side. And what does Cousin Sindi buy? She gets fancy Pilgrim-looking bread with a french name. I think it’s called a crescent. And she grabs this tub of goo…I think it looked kind of like hummus. Whatever it was, it was gross. And baby Kaylie didn’t seem to like it on her pacifier, boy was she mad at me after that. Either that or she wasn’t happy about pooping on herself. Maybe it was both.
We get to the checkout, and the cashier is very friendly with Cousin Sindi. I don’t know it is with extrovert women who have babies, but they all act like best friends without actually knowing each other. Cashier Casey said in a valley-girl tone, “aww! She’s like so cute! How old is she? My boy is like 7 months!” To which Cousin Sindi replied with “she’s 6 weeks” and then I cut her off mid-sentence. I cut her off good. I butted in with “don’t get too excited though, she doesn’t know any tricks yet. She just sleeps and poops. A lot.” That was when Cashier Casey gave me this weird look… I couldn’t tell if it was more laced with disgust or hatred, but she wasn’t very happy with my comment. Maybe she was trying to do the arranged marriage thing. I hope not. If she was, I really burned that bridge. And besides, 6 week old babies should at least be crawling, or grunting when you point at them. Not to mention that baby Kaylie was still on that darn binky. Who wants a kid with a childlike attachment to a piece of rubber and plastic? No one, that’s who. Plus, judging by Cashier Casey’s stature, her 7 month old would’ve been a significant chunker of a baby. What kind of cousin would I be to Cousin Sindi and baby Kaylie if I let her wind up with a fattie in a prearranged marriage? That would be horrible of me! That would almost be worse than the time when I left the toilet plunger in the toilet in the middle of the night at the blind people home. Oh memories… Good times, good times…
Anyway, Cousin Sindi happily said bye to Cashier Casey, and then Cashier Casey gave me this evil eye and mumbled some gypsy curse… Well, I think it was a curse. It sounded kina like what the scary gypsy lady from the Drag Me to Hell movie said as she handed the idiotic attractive main character chick a cursed button from her coat. Creeeeeepy. Oh, spoiler alert: She did get drug into hell. I totally called it. A hole in the ground under train tracks at a busy train station that go straight to Hades is a little predictable. They could’ve been a little more original. Now, a Hades pit under a Prius at the Toyota dealership, that would be unpredictable.
To abruptly end this excessively long story, we finally made it back to Cousin Sindi’s house after about 2 hours at Walmart. And I ate brisket. It was the best brisket I have ever had. Ever. I should also mention that I have never had brisket before, but even if I had, this would’ve been the best brisket ever. Oh, and for future reference, baby Kaylie does not like a brisket-flavored pacifier.