Cyber Monday goes by with a thud.

Buying a robot on cyber Monday isn't popular anymore, people spend on Black Friday (or a few hours earlier). I only received about half the junk mail cyber Monday offers as last year, hurt my self esteem.
I took a trip to Walmart today for work and was told I have an invalid credit card number card. I said no problem, let me call up Amex and I'll find out what's going on. The head cashier storms over and tells me the transaction has to be completed or else they have to get a manager over. I replied 'I can't pee money' and walked away to make a phone call.
Amex told me everything was fine, have them type in the card manually.... that required a manager too.
Typing the card number in manually is safer than using a card reader, managers needing to do this help prevent fraud. A card reader doesn't require ID for under X $ in purchases and most of the time they never ask for ID. How often are you really asked for an ID, especially if using a debit card and it's all self swipe.
I let them know the card reader was bad, the manager wasn't pleased she had to do her job and made sure to belittle the cashier to the head cashier. The holiday spirit is alive early this year in one of my least favorite stores of all time.

I ordered something from Tactical Assault Gear, something I've had my eye on for over 6 months. I checked to see if it was on sale (no luck) and noticed they had the color I've been wanting in stock. I've never seen multicam in stock before so I figured it was fate and stepped up.

Banshee carrier with optional attachments.

Soft Armor IIIa: front, back, and love handles!

The question at home was 'why did you buy it?'. It was a great question, and it wasn't about the expense.

I could have picked up another weapon, more ammo, food, etc. There are a ton of things I could have picked up that might seem better suited (generator and/or freezer come to mind). Having supplies is great, being able to defend your supplies and family is even better. I'm not sure that most people think they will ever get shot at. Countless sites, blogs and forums all seem to be big on weapons and having 50,000 rounds of ammo to fend off the countless 'zombies' (hungry neighbors) who will come and try to take your 'brains' (food). I assume if I have to shoot, I will get shot at.

If I'm prepared to defend my 'brains' and non infected family, why wouldn't I want a combat multiplier, an edge. This purchase might save my life, everything else I could get can only extend it. This isn't a movie, you don't get shot and rub the crushed bullet off your vest and bounce up, but you can get back up and you can survive. We have some a nice concealable armor vest in the closet but it's too small (better than nothing), from back when someone was 20 years younger. 20 years ago for me and I was still wearing flak vests, body armor for the military was never thought of.

We will check it out when it shows up and probably order another, why have just one person with an edge when you can have 2. Once we fit and play around with it, I'll think about getting rifle plates, depending on how the month ends up at work. There is always the factor of never knowing when you won't be able to purchase this stuff, some websites still ask for proof of 1st responder employment. I'm thinking not to far in the future the average citizen (or people like me) won't be able to buy armor anymore.