Wal-Mart in Covina

(from the LA Times)
…
Becky Willison, 31, of Covina was one of them, standing watch over a boxed Cabbage Patch Kids doll. She hoped to nab the $9 item for her 15-month-old daughter Mackensie because “it’s smushy,” she said.

The former middle-school English teacher, who was laid off in June, saved $550 of her unemployment checks for Christmas shopping.

“You’ll never know when you go,” she said. “It’s really bad, and just really slow.”

But Willison had been out shopping for hours, starting at 4:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day at K-Mart, before detouring home for dinner. She then struck out for the Coach factory outlet in Ontario at 10 p.m., where she picked up a $330 red purse. Next was the line at Toys R Us, which she abandoned at 1:30 a.m. for the Wal-Mart queue.

“No guts, no glory,” explained her partner in crime, mother-in-law Carol Garnett, 57, of Covina.