Post Holiday "Ouch"

My husband and I ventured into Wal Mart around 8:45 on Black Friday. Originally, he thought about trying the 5 am thing but changed his mind. He had an eye on some televisions, you know flat screen LCD, HDTV. Don't ask me! I can't tell the difference. By the time we arrived, the parking lot was practically empty. We wondered, "Where are the crowds?" Was the rush over, or was the rush nonexistent? We ambled into the electronics section to find plenty of empty shelves. We ended up buying a strand of lights and left the store. I couldn't believe how calm things were in the store. Had the swarm moved to more fertile ground? Wal Mart tallied the weekend numbers and reported bad news. It didn't look like a good start to the holiday retail season. Wall Street ran for cover, on the news. All indexes were off drastically, with the NASDAQ dropping over 2%. While I had observed the fall off in our Wal Mart, I didn't necessarily think it bad news for everyone. I plan to do a lot of shopping online this year, and I'm less inclined to fight the rush. It will be January before we know for sure, but I'm not crying "Scrooge" yet! Dow -139.24 NASDAQ -54.34 S&P 500 -19.01