I will admit that it is partially laziness that keeps me from venturing out in the earliest hours of the day after Thanksgiving.  The promise of a panini press for $3 is not enough to make me be at Target at 4 a.m. 

Neither the television nor the laptop has been invented that makes its acquisition from Best Buy more important than being warm, dry and uncrowded in the hours just before dawn.  My shopping list is just not extensive enough to merit turning holiday gift buying into a competitive sport.

If you were one of those brave enough, or thrifty enough, to have ventured forth this morning, I do sincerely hope it was fun and exciting.  I just didn't have it in me to get up extra early, go wait outside a store, fight others for a limited supply of special items, and then give the bounty of the hunt to someone else. 

However, I could see myself fighting for a better deal if any of these places have a sale:

1)       I will get up at whatever time I'm told and fight a cage match against my neighbors if my mortgage company gives me 50 percent off the principal I owe them.

2)      I will camp out in front of the bank for a day in advance for the opportunity to pay half of what I owe on my credit cards.

3)      I will leave the Thanksgiving table early just to be the first one in line to have my car payment slashed in two.

4)      I will skip the family meal itself if I can get a voucher for the other half of sending three kids to college.

So, that's a really pretty cashmere sweater and I am amazed that it only cost you $13.  Unfortunately for me, I'm in the position where I've already spent too much and I'm just looking for a deal whereby I only pay back half of what I've already committed. 

You see, if that sweater was originally $169, and you only paid the square root of that, then I need some of the financial institutions who hold my accounts to pay attention.  If I can be allowed to owe only the square root of my original debt, I will not only skip Thanksgiving but I will wear Lady Gaga's meat dress into a piranha-stocked Lake Audubon.