Yo.

I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that Christmas is less than a month away.  I get kind of flustered thinking about it.  I’m that girl who waits until Christmas Eve eve to do most of my shopping.  

Actually, I take that back.

I’m that girl who waits until Christmas Eve eve to do most of my shopping for other people.  But I totally take advantage of holiday sales and buy pretty, pretty things for myself.

This year on Black Friday, I stood in line at Martin’s for a pretty good while to get my hands on a brown North Face jacket I have been lusting after for a few months.  There were only about 30 or so people in front of me in line, so I was pretty confident that my patience would totally pay off.  About ten minutes before it was time for the doors to open, I noticed a group of high school aged boys inching their way closer and closer to the front of the line.  They were standing directly beside the line, blending in pretty well.  Every few minutes they would take a few steps forward, being incredibly quiet.  Most people in line were laughing and cutting up (it was freezing out there, so we had to stay jolly somehow…), so it was easy for these kids to go unnoticed.  

Yeah.

They went unnoticed until I not-so-quietly announced their presence to everyone.

By this time, the line was longer than the length of the whole building.  The doors were opening any second, and despite the unkind words and nasty looks being thrown their way, those boys were not going to budge.  They started whispering amongst themselves, and I knew exactly what their game plan was.  As soon as the doors opened and the line started flowing, they were just going to squeeze in.  People would be too determined to get in the store to sacrifice the precious seconds it would take to prevent the delinquent kids from committing the cardinal sin of Black Friday:  cutting in line.

I knew I couldn’t let this happen.

Everything went slow motion.

The Martin’s employees were walking to the doors with their keys out.  

The entire crowd outside was tense with the anticipation of what was on the other side of that glass.

The stupid boys were grinning and positioning themselves for the ultimate line break.

At the very last moment, I yelled, “Link up and keep them out!”

As the doors were swinging open, about a hundred strangers linked arms, held hands, or simply squeezed in as tight as possible to become one unit.  We all had two common goals:

1)      Get to the North Face jackets as quickly as possible.

2)      Exercise whatever means necessary to keep those pubescent boys from getting in that building before we did.

And you know what?  We succeeded. 

Thanks to my fabulous new jacket, I am incredibly warm and toasty as I am sitting here typing.

But it doesn’t even compare to the warmth I felt in my soul at the looks of anger and frustration on the faces of those boys as they realized that their plan had failed miserably.

(Go ahead and judge.  I’m a horrid person sometimes.)