Last year I took a week off of work and flew down to visit my parents in Arizona. It was a total veg-out type of vacation, and as a result I decided to watch the entire set of The Lord of the Rings extended version, all 726 minutes of it. If you've never done this I would highly recommend it. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make it a new tradition. So this year I've been watching the net for deals on the extended version of LotR. I found that Best Buy was selling the Blu-ray version for $50 - that's half off the listed price of $99. Recognizing a good deal when I see one, I ordered it. There's only one problem: I don't own a Blu-ray player.
Not owning a Blu-ray player obviously wasn't a deal breaker, but in order to fulfill my new tradition I was going to need one before Christmas. I was fairly certain that there would be a Black Friday deal for one somewhere, and I was correct, Wal-mart had one for $38 - not bad!
This being my first experience queuing up for a good deal I didn't know how early I should be there. The player went on sale at 10pm Thursday night, so I figured we would just head over to the store directly after Thanksgiving dinner. We got there at about 3:30 and quickly realized we were way to early, the line hadn't even been designated yet, so we decided to ditch out for a few hours and watch a movie. We saw Red Dawn and it was fantastic!
After the movie was over we headed back to the store and by this time they had setup a line for the coveted Blu-ray player. We ended up being second in line.
Wal-mart had designated lines for all their big-ticket items, like TV's, computers, etc. but for the smaller items like DVD's Blu-ray's, thumb drives, digital cameras etc. they just had a huge "pit". Basically they had about a dozen cardboard shelves covered in brown paper with notes taped on them saying something like "These items will not ring up at the register until 8pm." Our spot in line was directly across from the "pit". At 7:30 there was seriously about 100 people gathered around the covered merchandise drooling over what lay beneath. When 8 o'clock hit it was a mad house, the store employees ripped off the brown paper to the roar of an excited crowed. My curiosity got the better of me and I left my wife in line so I could see what was under the paper. It was mostly just DVD's and Blu-ray's.
It's hard to explain the atmosphere when 8 o'clock hit. There was definitely a sense of urgency. It wasn't just the "pit" that opened at 8pm, other deals throughout the store kicked off as well. After scooping up all 8 Harry Potter Blu-rays for 3 bucks each, I ventured out deeper into the store. The toy isle was filled with parents scooping up whatever they could grab. People with carts filled with so much loot that they couldn't see in front of themselves were pushing their way down the isles for more. I, free of a cart and loot (having dropped off my previous hall with my wife), was free to weave in and out and around, trying to find something to grab. Surely there was something I could find interesting and cheap to buy. But what I ended up noticing was that the items marked as Black Friday specials that were quickly being snatched up by frenzied parents weren't even on sale! The price was the same as any other day. The scheme was quickly apparent to me, they draw you in with cheap big ticket items and dupe you into buying a bunch of other stuff you hadn't set out to buy. The excitement quickly wore off for me when I realized that there really wasn't much savings to be had. I forced my way past the toy section and into the bedding area where I found a fleece blanket for pretty cheap and a Curious George book for $5.
With the excitement wearing off and feeling satisfied that I found something, I pushed and shoved my way back to my wife where I pretty much stayed until 10 o'clock.
The people-watching was pretty good and kept me well entertained for the duration, Wal-mart never fails in this aspect. We even saw a guy dressed as Waldo, which in a crowd of people was perfect!
At about 9:30 the same crazy frenzy began anew with a mob of people crowded around more bins covered in brown paper, this time marked for 10pm. This crowd was bigger than the first, and the items covered under the paper were more desirable too. When 10 o'clock hit and the crowed erupted I felt pretty nervous. This time I was leaving the cover of the line I was in and I had my wife by my side. I rounded the corner and dropped all the movies I had under my arm. I fanatically picked them up and grabbed the Blu-ray player we were there for. We quickly darted for the checkout as a group of police officers with three-foot-long clubs ran past us toward the crowd. Because we didn't have a cart we were able to weave our way toward the front of a vary long line to checkout.
When we finely got home my wife went straight to bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow. I was still way too excited for sleep, so I started to sort through our loot. I laid out all the stuff on the floor in preparation for a picture because everyone knows if there isn't a screenshot it didn't happen. It was then that I realized I was missing something! We only had 7 Harry Potter movies. I double and triple checked, but after reviewing the receipt I realized that I was in fact missing The Prisoner of Azkaban. I must have missed it when I dropped the stack. Panic started to set it. I knew that those movies wouldn't last all night so I grabbed my jacked and headed back to the store. The crowed was intensifying, the line to checkout was about 100 people deep, but I knew that in the chaos I could cut my way into the front. I frantically searched for the missing movie, there was only one shelf of Blu-ray's left and it was almost empty. I started to panic a little when I couldn't find it, but I lucked out, it was hidden on the bottom shelf behind a different movie.
I waited in line listening to a lady complain that the TV she was attempting to buy didn't match the sale price in the ad. After arguing with two managers she conceded that she must have stood in the wrong line. She demanded to pay the price she saw in the ad. The managers weren't about to budge "the lines were clearly marked" they said. She persisted and insisted that she receive the TV she wanted. By this point there was nothing the store managers could do, all the TV's, not just the one she wanted, had been sold. I made it through my line before her ordeal was sorted out. Some people just aren't satisfied in failure unless they can drag everyone around them down too. She sat at the register for over 30 minutes with more than 100 people behind her. I'm just glad I wasn't one of them.
I have to admit that I found the atmosphere of this experience to be fun, at least until it erupted into madness, and I feared for my life. I could easily be talked into it again next year for the right item.
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