Black Friday shopping

Last Thursday I went Black Friday shopping. I’m well aware of the fact that Black Friday shopping isn’t related to the usual topics that I blog about. But seeing as how this is a significant first, I decided to make an exception.

It all started with a simple solution to a simple problem.

 Thursday morning, it was thanksgiving and we had no plans for what to eat. My mother was in China, and my pops is a bad cook (sorry dad, it’s true). To avoid a catastrophe, dad decided to drop me and my younger sister off at my older sister’s apartment. His instructions were simple; we were to mooch as much food as possible, and, if the opportunity ever arose, we were to sneak him some pumpkin pie (he was too old to go mooch food from a group of college students). So there we were, sitting in my sister’s apartment while she and a few of her college buddies whipped up some traditional thanksgiving food. After stuffing ourselves with duck (the 100% Asian group I was eating with, me included, decided that duck was preferable over turkey), chicken, stuffing, two casseroles, pumpkin pie, and a healthy brew of hot cider (some of the college kids had brought brandy and drank that instead) we kicked back on the couch to watch Eddie Izzard and play board games.

                 At around one in the morning, me, my older sister, her boyfriend, her Korean friend, (just a way to distinguish him from everyone else without using his name) and my younger sister squeeze into a 1996 Camry. As we approach the mall parking lots,we’re greeted by the sight of hundreds of cars, and not a single parking space. We circle the parking lots, playing musical chairs with the other twenty cars looking for parking spots. After several laps around the mall, we stalk a group of people exiting the mall, wait for them to get into their car, and dash into the parking spot before anyone else can steal it. Having secured an extraction point, the troops rolled out of the vehicle in preparation for an assault on the mall facilities. A rolling bombardment of cuts and sales had weakened the prices; we were ready to swoop in for the kill. The Korean friend talks about his goal of obtaining some cheap jeans. My older sister, always the ambitious type, plans on waiting till five am for the Sephora store to open. My younger sister makes some vague demands for shiny things. Both My sister’s boyfriend and I are just along for the ride. Me being a rookie, I wanted to see some pros at their finest on Black Friday, the boyfriend, being a good boyfriend, was there to keep my sister company. We enter the mall and walk through throngs of people, excitement was coursing through my veins; I was finally a part of a great American tradition. We head into the Gap, where my sister spots some jackets; the boyfriend is surprised and slightly annoyed to find that the jacket he is wearing is available for cheaper than what he had gotten it for. I wasn't particularly interested in buying clothing so I just walk around aimlessly. I catch sight of Mary Evans and wave. She asks me about what I plan on getting, followed by a joke about how only crazy people are shopping here. I recognize that she’s trying to hold a conversation, but at two in the morning my brain, along with my social skills are starting to suffer, and I just mumble. She bids me good luck and continues with her shopping. We head to Eddie Bauer next. The Korean friend catches sight of a coat he likes and engages in an intense conversation with my sister about whether or not it was worth it. He decides to get, reassured by the fact that it wasn't a final buy (non returnable). The sales lady notices that I am wearing an Eddie Bauer coat and makes some witty remark that I am unable to recall. We then head out to the other clothing stores. Forever 21 is jam packed and we wade through crowds for a while, nothing memorable happens there. We then head over to banana republic; I catch sight of my neighbor and the old white guy who rides my bus (he sits in the middle rows listening to heavy metal and rock music at a volume that cannot possibly be good for his hearing). Abercrombie and Fitch has some random ripped shirtless guy standing near the entrance. Women flirt with him the entire time that we are in the store. After another group of stores my legs are starting to give out. It’s nearing four in the morning and the endurance that I had cultivated from eleven years of swimming and four years of Uni fitness is failing me.  My sister allows me some time to buy coffee. I get a Grande caramel mocha latte with whipped cream and an extra shot of espresso. The sugar from the drink gives me a rush and as I enter Old Navy I start to get fidgety. The caffeine kicks in a little while after I start crashing. The Korean friend finds a pair of jeans that he likes but has to wait in a line with 50 people in it. The rest of the group ditches him and heads back to Eddie Bauer. At this point Sephora is minutes away from opening. We head back to pick up the Korean friend and make our way to Sephora. We drop by Teavana to get some free samples and walk under some artificial snow machines before standing outside the store to await its opening. I lie down and take a nap, hoping that nobody trips over me. The rest of the group continues shopping. After finishing at Sephora my older sister decides that it’s time to go home (she can’t shop very effectively when her siblings are sprawled on the ground near the store entrance sleeping). We climb back into the car and my sister drops the Korean friend back at his apartment. She then drops me and my younger sister off at home. I climb into the house stumble up the stairs, and collapse onto the bed. I don’t wake up until three in the afternoon, having bought absolutely nothing at the mall I ask myself why I even bothered going.

Here are some things that I learned from Black Friday shopping.

     When it comes to shopping, girls have superhuman endurance. My younger sister who insists upon going to bed at eight o clock every evening, made it through Black Friday without any side effects, she had gotten a shiny bracelet and considered the six hours of shopping required to obtain that one bracelet worth it. My older sister showed no signs of tiring throughout the entire endeavor.

       Black Friday shopping makes you feel really poor. It’s really sad when everything is 50% off and you still can’t afford anything L.

    Coffee makes you pee. I shouldn't have ordered the Grande. 

Sharp things hurt

I didn't have the materials necessary for creating the weapon I had planned for this week, so I decided to just tell a story instead.

It's another story about one of my injuries. I hope it reminds anyone reading this blog that messing with sharp things can be potentially hazardous to one's health.

The story involves one of the older gadgets that I had created, an arm-blade of sorts, designed to propel a blade from a tube attached to my arm . The weapon was designed to give the user a concealable and lethal edge, capable of turning any fistfight into a very one sided shank fest.
The design for the weapon consisted of a metal skewer bound to a chopstick wrapped in scotch tape. The skewer was pushed into a tube and I used rubber bands as a means of propelling the blade. It was designed as a melee weapon, stopping once it reached a length. The design was faulty and unreliable, prone to breakdowns when the weapon was left cocked for a long period of time. It was one of these malfunctions that ultimately led to my injury.

First and foremost, the injury I received was a hundred percent my fault. I was stupid enough to have been tinkering with this object in a class. The main tube had broken and the stopping mechanism was faulty, I had attempted to fix it at the bus stop, but I hadn't managed to fix it before the bus came.
During one of my classes, after all the students had settled down and the teacher had started lecturing, I pulled the gadget out to finish repairing it. Five minutes or so after I had started fixing it, I had managed to get the thing working again. However, as I was putting it back into my back pack the trigger of the weapon was bumped. At the time, the weapon was cocked and loaded. The barrel also happened to be pointed at my hand.

The blade flew into my hand the moment the trigger released it. the searing pain made me jerk my hand back, effectively dislodging the metal skewer. My hand was throbbing, the blade had stuck a good inch. Unfortunately I was still in class. The teacher hadn't noticed anything and I had intended to keep it that way. My hand was bleeding so I wrapped some tissues around my wrist and used rubber bands to cut off the blood flow long enough for me to somewhat bandage my wound. Having received a puncture wound from a rusty metal skewer, I had two major concerns. The first one being tetanus, which would effectively kill if i didn't get to a hospital. The second one being sepsis, which would also effectively kill me if I didn't get to a hospital. With these threats in mind, I downed several amoxicillin  pills. I also opened a few of the capsules and rubbed the powder into my wound (no idea if that did anything). Having done everything that I could at the time, I waited for the class to end. When the bell rang, I sprinted to the bath room, washed the blood from my hand and massaged my wrist to restore blood flow. By then, the wound had sealed up (puncture wounds seal very quickly, which can be problematic as it can trap bacteria into the wound), and my hand was a very disturbing shade of purple. Once I had restored blood flow to my hand, I continued on with the rest of my classes.

As a result of the puncture wound, I suffered a localized infection in my hand. The infection effectively paralyzed two fingers and made moving any of the others very painful. I had gotten my tetanus booster and the infection didn't seem to spread, so I got away pretty lucky. I was also lucky in the sense that the blade had stabbed into the fleshy part between my two fingers. Had it hit a tendon, I would most likely not have use of my hand or at the very least, a few of my fingers.

Sharp things are dangerous, one should always exercise great caution around them.