Hoot Mommy: Black Friday shopping.....

Ahhh...last night after eating more turkey I headed back to the base at 9Pm and met up with a few girls to send Kasia off for good. She was supposed to leave on Monday, but it took a little longer to pack her shipment. After chatting we went up to her TLA room and planned on meeting today at 7 AM to shop at the NEX. The Italian nationals who work at the NEX decided to go on strike to impact the biggest shopping day of the year. Boy did it work and was it ever frustrating to me!!! The reason why they are striking is because they want higher wages and the ability to shop at the base commissary and exchange. In my opinion, I do not think they should be able to shop at the commissary or exchange.

Anyway I anticipated some trouble getting on base this morning so I asked the MP (military police) last night at the gate if I should come early because of the strike. He proceeds to tell me that I won't have any problems because they don't anticipate any violence. Okay so Lesley and I wake up at 6AM this morning and leave the house around 6:45 since the NEX wasn't opening until 8 AM and guess what we see???

There were hundreds of union members striking. Not only were they striking outside the front and back gates, but they were blocking both entrances and exits. They refused to allow any traffic on or off base...and boy were thay successful in pissing a lot of people off and hurting the sales at the exchange and commissary today. As a matter of fact the commissary didn't even open because all of the cashiers were striking. Being that my father is so pro-union I tried to reason with myself what they were trying to accomplish, but I couldn't help but feel resentment towards these people who were disrupting my shopping and the plans that I had for this morning. Eventually since they were blocking the entrances to get on base I drove by them and the Italian police and just parked my car amongst the crowd then walked on base not even caring if they broke into my car and vandalized it.

Finally I was going to shop after the 40 min. delay outside the gates. I eventually met up with my friends, bought several gifts for the kids/ Trent and then stopped at the food court to have a cup of coffee with Jackie, Janet and Patricia. Lesley and I headed home after a very long morning. It was so long she fell asleep on the way home;D