"Frozen Testicles" would also be a good name for a band. As would "Cavernous Bellybutton."

Here is what my family thinks is quality entertainment: getting up at 4 a.m. to stand in line for 20 minutes in 14-degree weather and talk about my sister's bellybutton. Seriously. I laughed really hard.

So we decided this year that we were going to do the Black Friday thing. My parents and sister came to visit me here in IC for Thanksgiving, meaning that there were actual shopping options closer than 60 miles away. Plus, my computer is dying a slow, agonzing death, and I wanted to attempt to get one of the cheap computers Best Buy was offering. I figured that maybe IC was the place to try, since the college students had all gone home and maybe everybody else was just too practical and Midwestern-complacent to be out at the ridiculous hour of 5 a.m. Alternately, I hoped they would be at Wal-Mart rioting in the electronics section.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at Best Buy a little after 4:30, we were approximately 200th in line, so there was little to no chance I was going to get one of the approximately two cheap computers Best Buy used to lure in suckers like me. I have no idea why we decided to go ahead and wait in line until 5 a.m., especially after overly energetic Best Buy employees told us they were only letting in staggered groups of people, reducing the chance that someone would be hilariously crushed against the doors.

Wait in line we did, though, with somewhat more purpose after we got ahold of a copy of the ad and SB found some memory chips on a crazy deal. In the meantime, my sister had slurped down her travel mug full of extra-strong coffee and become animated enough to talk. Her conversational topic of choice? The bellybutton. Let me try to recapture for you the gist of the exchange.

E3: Oh my gosh. I cleaned my bellybutton for the first time the other day.
Me and M4: blank looks
E3: It's huge in there!
Me: What?
E3: It's huge! My bellybutton is cavernous.
Me: laughing There are stalactites?
E3: I could keep things in there. You know how some people just have polite little bellybuttons? That's not me.
Me: I think I see a lichen.
E3: Seriously. Like half a Q-Tip fit in there.
Me: Laughing so hard I can't see. You know if you press on your bellybutton, you can really gross Grandma out?
M4: Yeah, she doesn't like that.
E3: Yeah, I'm afraid if I stick my finger in there I won't get it back out.
Look, somone put their travel mug over there. We should steal it.

Lord only knows what the people next to us in line thought, especially when we reenacted the whole conversation for SB when he got back from warming himself in the car. However, the point about the travel mug was well taken. It was silver and shiny, and when we came out of Best Buy, it was still there. So E3 stole it.

We did finally make it into Best Buy in the fifth group; of course, the computers were unavailable and the store was a crush, which made both me and my sister feel claustrophobic, so we discussed that, loudly. We sent SB off to find his chips and wandered across the store to look at DVDs. This was a fatal error. If I can offer you one piece of advice about Black Friday, it is this: stick together. You will never find each other otherwise.

So the Best Buy experience was irritating, not least because "helpful" employees asked me every five seconds if they could help me find something. It got to the point where I wanted to say, "Yeah, you can help me find something. Where's my DAD?"

Anyway, we eventually found my dad, who had found his chips, and we sent him off to check out while we assessed the situation at Target next door. There were only about 20 people milling in front of the Target door because, we discovered, Target didn't open until 6. We weren't really that thrilled to be waiting another 40 minutes, so we decided to just stand there and people-watch until SB came out of Best Buy. My mom borrowed a circular from some nice lady standing in front of us; I listened to the idiot behind me attempt to defend his choice of outerwear. "It's a sweatshirt! It's the same thing as a coat!" Bzzt. I have no sympathy for your frozen testicles, you fantastic example of Darwinism, you. Nor do I want to hear about them anymore.

By 5:40, SB still hadn't come out of Best Buy and the line at Target was up to about 100 people, of which we were the 25th, by M4's count. At that point, we could hardly give up our fantastic position in line, even though we were freezing and still didn't want to buy anything despite now being fully informed of the available deals. At 5:50, approximately 150 people in line, still no SB. Finally, at 5:55, SB (and E3, who had gone to steal Best Buy's heat on the pretense of looking for him) joined us. SB: "What are we doing here?" Good question, Dad.

We walked into Target on the nose of 6 a.m., but not before we got to watch a little drama unfold—a woman tried to cut in line! Oh, the horror. Frozen Testicles set up such a ruckus that the security guard was forced to step in and keep her out. Shut up, Frozen Testicles. She's not going to take your $98 acoustic guitar.

In the end, we decided to hit J.C Penney, as well. I ended up buying a shirt and couple of cheap DVDs; SB got a few things at Penney's (including a cute pair of brown loafers I stuck on his pile just as the saleslady was finised scanning his items; she had them scanned and in a bag before he could say "boo"). Afterwards we went to Perkins and got some eggs, where my sister continued her bizzare conversational ways by announcing that she thinks she farts more than the average person.

So that was our Black Friday experience, or at least the interesting part of it. Next year I think I'll follow E4's example: stay home and sleep, and hope that someone brings me a cinnamon roll when I finally crawl out of bed.