As a rule I tend to avoid going out on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I don’t like crowds. Apparently, retailers are targeting folks like me by opening up on Thursday night. You would think by the amount of typtophan (turkey) consumed that folks would be a lot more mellow. Nope. I saw that lady with the tazer. Of course being opened on a day that folks should be forced to spend with their relatives is just not cool, so this Christmas season I’m boycotting those stores. Alright, I usually only shop at 2 of them anyway so it’s no big deal.

But that’s beside the point.

I really hate that a season supposedly about people, family and the friends we make has turned into a way to dump merchandise that isn’t selling. And given that most folks out there are shopping for themselves, this just exacerbates the culture of me mentality. Of course for some folks, it’s a family tradition and they’re out there with their family, so there you have it. So maybe buying stuff you don’t need is really just a new tradition.

Now, I’m off topic.

As I said, I don’t like going out, but you youngest daughter is faintly evil (she won’t come into her true evil powers for another 7 years or so, just like her dear ol’ mom). Whilst I was baking an almond cranberry pie, she was perusing a Joann’s ad and wanting to know if we were going because there was some penguin fabric she admired. I said no and what did we need with that fabric anyway? She didn’t know but she was sure I needed a new sewing machine. Um, yeah, but the old was works most of the time and I didn’t need 50 stitches when I sew only (mostly) straight lines when quilting. She kept pointing to the ads and asking me to look. I refused. Then she shouted, “cockroach.”

And I looked.

Doh! There was no cockroach right next to my mixer (thank heavens). She tried it a few more times, but I didn’t fall for it after the 2nd time.

Later, she was working at her computer in another room when she shouted, “cockroach.”

Having learned my lesson, I didn’t look nor did I come to the rescue. She sicced her cat on it and my husband found a dead cockroach on the floor early the next more. So Mom and Child each learned a lesson— She learned about Karma and I learned that mother’s guilt can cause a person to do things they don’t really want to do.

Thankfully no tazers were involved in the lesson.