My Real Black Friday

Black Friday. The word strikes fear into my heart. Well, not fear per se. Just a nausea that won't go away. I dislike Black Friday with a passion. The people that line up are just crazy. Their cries of "Hey..put me on TV!!" or "Can I be on TV" get under my skin easier on this day than any other day.

My Black Friday started off with getting stuck in a back up of traffic for 50 minutes. I was sent from my house to a local outlet mall that opened at midnight. I live 15 minutes away from the mall so getting there usually isn't a problem. We were told a few "select" stores would be open at the mall. Well, virtually all the stores were open. People were gridlocked trying to get there. Fifty minutes while in my news unit. I had already started to hate the people surrounding me for trying to shop at midnight.

I got to the mall, found a parking spot luckily and got my video and sound. Heading away from the place I sighed as a wave of relief spread over me. I headed back to the station only to get a call to check out a scene where a nine year old was shot and killed by his 10 year old cousin accidentally. It's not in a good neighborhood for starters. Plus tensions and emotions always run high when a child is shot.

I get to the area and there was no scene. No cops, no tape, no nothing. I tell the desk this and they say it happened at 10 p.m. so there might not be a scene anymore. That upsets me because we have crews available at that time. But maybe they were busy with other stuff.

Getting back to the station, I'm told that I'm live at a mall for more shoppers. Great. My ulcer just formed.

Live shot time comes around and for once things aren't going too badly. No tension, shoppers are very polite for the most part and the Sears store we're at is cooperating fully with us. Life is good...

Until...

Our 6:26 a.m. hit is coming up and I get ready for it. I shoulder my camera, put my eye to the eyepiece and.....my right eyeglass lens pops out and falls to the floor with 10 seconds till our hit. I switch to my left eye but that's horrible because my eyesight is just as bad with that eye. We finish our hit, thankful it was short. I try frantically to find the lens and little screw that holds it in place but I can't find the tiny screw. A woman overheard me say I couldn't find the screw and came over. She hands me her little eyeglass kit complete with screwdriver and extra screws !!! Sadly, none of the screws were the right size but she gave me hope in holiday shoppers. God Bless her. I even tried the old paper clip fix and that didn't work. Damn!

About this time, my reporter needs me to edit and send video back for her next hit. So, off I go into the truck to edit. I'm putting the last edit down when I hear 1:30 to our next hit. I call back and feed forty seconds of video back, punch up my camera, lock the truck and run back into the store with twenty seconds to spare.

After that hit, I head back out to the truck...

and discover that I've locked myself out of my live truck!!! Shit.

Calling the desk, I ask them to call the police and have them bring a slim jim. They were there within three minutes, At least that went my way.

But now, I'm still blind in my dominant eye, I need to do two more shots for our morning show and I'm using my weaker ey to do those. I need to also shoot video after we're done and I need to get my glasses fixed.

Hey, I'm in a mall!! I can get my glasses fixed no problem. Sears has an optical department!! So I head over to it after my shots are over to discover.....

They don't open until 10 a.m.

Ok, no problem....JC Penney has an optical department...

But they don't open until 10 a.m also.

There's an EyeMasters in the mall so I go there...

you sensing a pattern here??? Yup, 10 a.m. !! Fudge...!!!

Ah Hah!!! A Sunglass hut!!! Yes...!! I head there and the girl couldn't have been nicer...or cuter!! She has spare screws and proceeds to try although she's really not allowed to put screws in glasses. Apparently that feat is above Sunglass Hut Employees and says so in their training manual.

She doesn't have the right tiny screw either but I thank her profusely also and head off again. This time I hit a small store that sells chips and pop. I ask if they have eyeglass kits and they say no but they do sell Krazy Glue!! Awesome. I can at least glue the damn lens in!!! So I buy a tube of it and head off to my truck. I pass by a Dakota Watch kiosk. Something told me to ask if they had spare screws. And to my astonishment, they actually had a screw that fit but wasn't long enough to fully close together. Well, heck, I have a screw and a tube of Krazy Glue. I can fix anything!!!

So I carefully take my newfound screw and tube of glue back to the truck and proceed to glue the screw in place while getting a good amount over my fingers and right lens. At least it held!!!!

Praise God. At least I could see relatively well enough to shoot and drive back to the station.

I was able to get a good repair done to my glasses when I got off work and the Krazy Glue removed from the lens.

So, how was your Black Friday?