This is not a paid post. I’m just telling you how I really feel. The coupons shared at the end of this piece are affiliate links, which means if you click those and make a purchase, I get a handful of change and pat on the bottom.
Once Upon a Black Friday
You don't know what those people would be willing to do for a 25% off of a VCR / DVD player combo. (Photo credit: Anna Dziubinska, Unsplash.com)
Twas the week before Black Friday and before the Internet and cyber-everyday hijacked the mania of Christmas shopping. My friend, her mother, and her mother’s mother were stirring and pouring over Black Friday shopping circulars. They compiled their data and make a color-coded flow chart of what stores they’d hit and when with care, knowing the big day would soon be there.
On Black Friday morning, they arose at Satan-30 with a clatter and would head to the store to buy stuff that --in a few months, wouldn't matter. The end.
I did Black Friday once as a teen. I went with my mom, and we stood outside of Best Buy near people who’d camped out the night before in sleeping bags and lawn chairs (this was before iPhones, so I have no idea what they were shopping for…VCRs / DVD player combos?). I remember the crowds. The bumping. The nudging. The endless lines for what. I finally understood my dad’s claim that he’d rather pay $20 more for something than to stand in one of those lines. (That’s saying a lot. My parents are insanely frugal. My mom shopped at a long-since closed store called Mac Frugals. It was the lead competitor to her other favorite store, Frugals, Frugals, Frugals, Frugals. I’m kidding about that last bit. (#modernfamily)) Yes, I would gladly pay $20 to do that again never.
The Only Black Friday Sale Worth Leaving the House For
And, I didn’t until two years ago when I found out about THE ONLY BLACK FRIDAY SALE THAT MATTERS…signed editions at Barnes & Noble. That was the year that there was going to be a signed edition of Nancy Tillman’s On the Night You Were Born. I had the board book, which I’d read to my oldest daughter since she was the size of a chicken nugget, but it was somehow very important I get a copy…a signed copy, for my son who’d been born sleeping the previous Christmas.
To my beautiful son...always.
Yes, I realized that Nancy Tillman wouldn’t be there flashing her pen across the book’s inside cover with words of affirmation or whatever. Honestly, it was probably for the best. I have zero game when it comes to meeting people who impress me, and the chances that I’d start crying all over Ms. Tillman and her nice pens were very high.
Regardless. I had to have a copy of the book. I was gripped with anxiety, the same anxiety all of those iPhone campers outside of Best Buy had. I needed to get to Barnes and Noble the minute they opened the door to get a copy this book.
Black Friday at Barnes & Noble: What It’s Like
Signed editions are so intimate...it's as if the author wrote that book just for you.
I arrived at opening time and then mentally kicked myself realizing they probably opened early since it was Black freaking Friday (I should’ve made a flow chart). I could hardly breathe as a I stormed in, hopeful they still had copies…willing to go crazy-crying-pregnant lady on someone if I needed to in order to convince them to sell me their copy (I was just starting my third trimester with my rainbow baby whose due date was ironically the same date as my son’s scheduled C-section would have been on).
The scene when I charged in wasn’t what I’d expected. It looked a like an average Tuesday. There were one or two shoppers perusing books. I still didn’t get it. My fear only amplified. I’ve missed it. I’m too late. Then I melted like Ursula in The Little Mermaid. No, then I –feigning composure—asked a sales person where the signed editions of On the Night You Were Born would be. The directed me to the children’s section where there were plenty of signed copies, not a single rabid shopper in sight.
I could hardly believe it. I got a copy of the book for my son. Then I got another copy for my best friend who was expecting her first baby. Then I picked up a copy of Polar Express because it was also signed and YOLO, am I right?
Signed editions from Black Fridays past.
By the time I left, I realized that Barnes & Noble’s Black Friday sale wasn’t the hub of insanity I’d been raised to expect. It was nice.
The following year was even better. I picked up roughly $200 worth of books (but I saved a lot with the 20% off coupons and my membership discount). I got a gift for my dad, a gift book for my husband, several books for me (including Anthony Bourdain’s Appetites cookbook), and a few others. I also got a signed copy of Gary Paulson’s Hatchet. It was the book I liked least from our 6th grade reading list, but it was the only book my husband remembers reading and liking as a child (I also got him the leather-bound anniversary edition this year…ironically, he hasn’t re-read the book yet.).
I didn’t have to stand in line to pay. I didn’t have to stand in line to get my coffee. If I wanted to sit down, there were places to sit. It’s the kind of Black Friday I can get behind and quite frankly, the only one that matters to me.
Black Friday Weekend 2017 Signed Editions at Barnes & Noble
B&N sent the list of signed editions for this year, and it’s longer than ever. A few that I’m interested in either because I’ve heard good things, have read the book, and / or admire the author are:
- The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls (I edit memoir and already have a copy, but not a signed copy)
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (Jesmyn was a guest professor at my alma mater after I left, so how could I not?)
- Where the Past Beings: A Writer’s Memoir (It’s Amy-freaking-Tan, and it’s a memoir, so yep. Also, she’s in a band with Stephen King. Oh my gosh, these people are so cool!)
- The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (A classic and one of my favorite required reads from high school)
- Into the Water by Paula Hawkins. (I loved The Girl on the Train but have yet to read Into the Water, so this a great opportunity to snag a copy.)
- Camino Island by John Grisham
- Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks
- Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
- A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Oh my gosh the list goes on and on, and these are just the books I’m going in to get for me. This doesn’t count the multitudes of titles that I am curious about but need to browse before I buy nor the books I’ll buy for friends and family as gifts. There’s a 50% chance I’m taking a wagon just so I can drag all of my finds around the store while I decide.
I’m so excited. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is only a week away and then (drum roll) book Friday! Signed editions are available in Barnes & Noble only.
Look for this sticker to confirm you're getting a signed copy.
Let’s do this, fellow introverts. Let’s keep Black Friday real by going to the bookstore, getting a latte, nodding politely when we accidentally make eye contact, and buying a year’s worth of signed stories to live a thousand lives through. Whoooo!
Can't make it to a B&N location to score signed editions? No worries. I've got some great Black Friday week & weekend savings to share with you.
BARNES & NOBLE COUPON CODES
Starting Monday November 20
About Vonnie York: I’m a 34-year-old work-from-home mom of three (two daughters and one angel) and one more on the way (last one, for sure). I’m a writer and an introvert who loves wine, alone time, and life’s weirdness. Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for fun, funny posts, satire and sarcasm, and weird observations about writing, books, and family life.