Black Friday

How good would the deal have to be for you to sleep outside a store all night? Ponder that question as you read the rest of the message. Apparently for us, it’s not about the deal it’s about the experience, because we didn’t buy a single thing for ourselves. For those who may be wondering what I am talking about, I accompanied Chris on his annual Black Friday sale campout. This is the third year that Chris has actually slept overnight and by doing so he is helping feed into the hysteria that is the Best Buy Black Friday sale. The first year he went he left our house around 6pm and he was about 20^th in line. Last year he left at five and he was down to the corner of the building, maybe 30^th. This year we got there at four and the line was already around the corner, holding down the 50^th position. WHAT THE HECK!?! Imagine me saying that slowly and with emphasis to accentuate my point.

Ordinarily sane people seem to hear the word sale and lose all rational thought. Four of my brothers came with us, and I know this may sound strange, but truthfully the first eleven hours went by pretty quickly. The boys played video games against each other, and I watched some shows Chris downloaded on the early Christmas present he gave me. I was able to go to the Wal-Mart down the street for some snacks and a power inverter (who knew that was an essential), and I slept in the car for about an hour. We even had a few visitors bring us hot chocolate and looks of pity.

At about three the group in front of us decided to pack up their chairs and just stand in line. This left a big gap between them and our group and we were around the corner so some people thought the end of the line was at the end of the building, at least that’s what they wanted us to believe (I saw a couple of ladies in line and they were only wearing hoodies, so I know they weren’t there all night like all of the people around them). We cleaned all of our stuff up in a mad rush and hurried to secure our place in line. Then we waited. The store didn’t open until 5am and those last two hours were the longest of the whole night. I was getting pretty cranky at this point and all I could think was, “This is stupid; people who do this are stupid. This is a dumb way to live.” It really wasn’t the happiest I’ve ever been. It was better for my brother Brian though, he won a PSP and some DVD’s in a raffle held by the local cable company just before the store opened. It was bitter-sweet because the winning number was 90 and Chris’s number was 89 and mine was 91. If only we had been standing together it could have been ours. I think we have enough video game paraphernalia in our home so it was probably a good thing.

So what was the massive deal we did all of this for? A laptop-printer combo for only $230.00! Yes it was an excellent bargain, but as I mentioned before Chris and I didn’t get anything for us. We were able to fill all of the laptop requests we had received, and once the store actually opened we were all done and in our cars within 20 min. A little anti-climatic I know. Chris said the behavior was pretty tame compare to years past which was fine for me. I guess I can say that I have done it and I don’t ever have to do it again.