THANKSGIVING, BLACK FRIDAY, SHOES AND HOW I GOT BANNED FROM THE MALL

By Psychic Mystic Madam Misty Merkel
Northern Michigan's Trailer Park Psychic

I am so glad that Black Friday is over with.  Last weekend was just awful and I didn't get to take anything home from the mall except a ticket for a court appearance just before Christmas.

The weekend started with Thanksgiving which for the most part went rather well.  I decided not to go down state to see my relatives and certainly didn't want any of them coming up here.  My parents, aunts and uncles all have a weird way of looking at things that makes you think they are not just of Central European extraction but, that they came from some other planet.  For instance, they still think it's o.k. to decorate a white pine Christmas tree that was cut down a month ago with sixteen inch tapered candles.   The fire department loves my family.  It's also a tradition in my family for the men to urinate in the fireplace.  I guess they play some sort of game to see which one of them can drown the most coals.    Of course, once the fire is completely extinguished   the men in my family also expect the women to get down in there and get the fire going again for the next round.
My sisters didn't use to be so unpleasant but, they  are both having a mid-life crisis because they are getting close to turning 40.  I was born the same year they were so I'm gong to turn 40 soon also but, I don't really care because I'll just continue lying about my age to everyone I meet until I'm too senile to be tormented by age-vanity.

So, I was perfectly content to dine alone and have a nice holiday dinner of wine and cheese curls when my neighbor dropped by with a nice fresh pile of roadkill.  He told me he already had a freezer full of meat that he had scraped-up last summer so he wondered if I wanted to have his latest find for my turkey day dinner.   My neighbor wasn't quite sure about what kind of creature he had brought over but we both agreed it had to be some type of bird since there were lots of feathers mashed into the carcass.  

I used my turkey fryer to cook the dead bird.  It tasted real good but, I started a small fire in the living room.  You really have to watch that grease and keep it from spilling over.  I had to waste a half bottle of wine to put the fire out.   Note:  you have to use wine or beer to put out a turkey fryer fire because some types of whiskey will just make the fire worse.  I'm just glad I didn't change the batteries in the fire alarm because it would have been really irritating listening to all that noise.   It's good to remember not to keep working batteries in those nasty fire alarms.  Otherwise, every time there's a little smoke in the house a hideous noise just eats away at your brain until you just want to die.  I personally sleep a lot better at night knowing that I won't be disturbed by the noise from my fire alarm.
Well, once Thanksgiving was over with it was time for me to concentrate my energies on Black Friday.  I knew exactly what I wanted to buy on Black Friday.  I needed to purchase a new pair of shoes.  I've been wearing hiker boots that I purchased at Goodwill seven years ago.  I've had some really negative feedback both from the spirit world and this world regarding my footwear.  I finally decided to go down to the local mall and pick up a pair of cheap shoes on Black Friday.  It seems that a store in the mall called Bait n' Switch Shoes had a "Buy One Get One Free" sale.  I couldn't resist the great deal so I camped out at the mall four hours before midnight just to get in to purchase some really nice shoes at Bait n' Switch.

I was so excited when I was finally allowed to shove my way through a mass of smelly, fleshy customers and enter into the mall.  I then ran out of the food court at the mall entrance and continued down a corridor until I arrived at Bait n' Switch Shoes.  The entire front of the store was covered with banners picturing giant colorful shoes with "Buy One Get One Free" blazing in bold print all around each shoe.  I'll tell you that I was so excited once I burst thought the door of that shoe store that I was literally shaking when I brought my two pairs of shoes up to the register and waited smugly to be checked-out.  Since I was the only in the store I didn't actually have to wait in a line to be checked out but, I had to wait for an elderly lady to make her way to the counter from the backroom.

"Hello," I said as the lady approached the checkout lane.  The lady had white hair and was so stooped over her eyes were looking down at the floor.  The woman wore bright red lipstick.   "You must be expecting a lot of business in here today."  I added.

"Not really," she replied.  It's going to be slow today so, we're getting a head start on our inventory by spending the day counting back stock in the backroom."
I kind of detected a bit of resentment in the lady's tone as if she was irritated that she had to stop her counting back stock and come out here and wait on me.  I was willing to overlook her attitude because I was still really excited at the prospect of buying one pair of really nice shoes and getting the second pair for free.
Now the shoes I was buying had a price on them of $19.99 per pair.  The sales tax in Michigan is roughly 6%.  So, I expected to pay about $21.20 for my shoes but instead, when she rang me up the clerk said that I owed her $42.38.  In other words, I owed her twice what I thought.  "Listen Missy," I said, "I'm complying with the sign over these shoes that says buy one get one free.  I believe I should be paying about half this price since I am buying two pairs of shoes."
The lady looked at me directly in the eye and said that "you are buying one shoe and getting the other shoe for free.  If you pay full price for the left shoe then you get the right shoe for free and vice versa.  Can't you understand English?" the clerk bleated sarcastically.

"This sounds like a real rip-off," I complained in a very loud voice.  I demand to see the manager."

The clerk then got on the phone and told the manager that she had a problem at the register with a customer.  The manger bounded out of the backroom and came up to the check-out lane.  The manger was just a young kid about 18 years old.  This boy had red lipstick plastered all over his face and it seemed to match the same lipstick the elderly clerk was wearing.  The boy was very disheveled with his shirt tails were hanging out and his shirt just half buttoned.

"So what's the problem Carol?" the boy asked.

"This woman wants a free pair of shoes from us," the elderly clerk answered.  "She claims that our buy one shoe for full price and get the other shoe for free means she should get another pair for free.  I think this woman is a shoplifter."
The young boy turned to me and asked "Is this right?  Are you trying to steal a free pair of shoes from us?"

"I was just in here to get in on your 'buy one  get one free' shoe sale," I replied.
Well, the manger of the shoe store instructed the clerk to call store security and I was promptly arrested for attempting to steal shoes.  A sheriffs deputy showed up and gave me a ticket to appear before a judge for attempting to steal shoes from a retailer.  Then, before I left the  mall I was informed that I was permanently banned from shopping there.     So, for me "Black Friday" became "Bleak Friday".  Lucky for me that the nearby gas station had a buy one get one free sale on Morgan David wine.