I avoid shopping on weekends at the best of times. I'm lucky enough to have a career where I have random weekdays off and can shop with relative ease while others are at work. I avoid shopping on weekends during the holidays like the plague; and I avoid shopping on the weekend after Thanksgiving AT ALL COSTS. Unfortunately, yesterday, what some retailers have apparently deemed Stellar Sunday, my fridge, pantry and dog food containers were all empty. And our love of food demanded I venture out. I probably could have held out. But I'm not sure I could have handled the vengeance of two hungry pups. Pulling into the shopping center was only mildly more annoying than usual. I don't know who designed the traffic flow of this particular shopping center, but they really shouldn't have quit their day job. The grocery store was, of course, slammed. Everyone being out of leftovers and, like me, wanting to stock up for the work week ahead. But the real kicker was the cats. They were up for adoption and set up on the main aisle in the pet store. Which of course meant everyone was congregating and gawking and generally taking up space in the only real route to the dog food. I zigged past the turtle pond, around the first cage, almost ran over a child bee-lining for the fat tabby, found the food, hefted the 33 pounds into my cart, avoided the husky straining on his leash, zagged into the checkout line only to almost take out the 100 pound girl who, arms loaded, jumped in front of me to go first, and finally arrived back to my car, panting and sweating, mission accomplished. I gotta say, the dogs better friggin appreciate and those fat cats better have found themselves some decent homes.