Saturday, November 26, 2011

Black Friday

So I'm not one to usually go shopping on Black Friday. I hate crowds, and I hate driving around a bunch of psycho drivers who are all trying to get the best parking spot available. Furthermore, I hate getting up at 3 in the morning to go stand in lines for a product that I may or may not be able to get, plus standing in an equally long line in order to get out.

Shawn, on the other hand, has no problems with any of the Black Friday craziness.

Thus we found ourselves leaving the house at 1030 on Thanksgiving to go stand in lines at two different stores. Both of which opened at midnight. Only one of which I expected to have a line (Best Buy). I figured for sure that Old Navy wouldn't have anyone standing at the door. I was wrong. By the time I showed up (at like 1040), there were already 35 people in line. (compared to the Best Buy line which had to be at a couple hundred, though...)

And that's about when the crazy started. There were some kids in line (and I say kids because they were in high school) at the front and they were really there to hold spots for about 10 of their friends. Which is no different than the girls right in front of me who took turns holding each others' spot in line because they were all dumb and wore shorts and t-shirts so they were switching of running to the car to get warm. But I digress. The point was that most people in the line felt that holding spots for people who had heretofore never shown up counted as "cutting in line." After copious amounts of yelling and two of the girls in front of me going and threatening bodily harm, the group of boys got out of line and instead stood across the cross walk.

Now then, at this point, we (the lady behind me and I) figured out that the reason for all the crazy was that Old Navy was giving away a Kodak Easyshare Sport camera to the first 40 customers who purchased $40 worth of clothing. It was also at this point that the lady and I were lamenting that we didn't want to be involved in any Black Friday stampede craziness, we just wanted some $15 jeans. I told her that the deals were valid online as well; but you would have to pay shipping and tax (though shipping was free at $50). So she left while I continued to wait (it wasn't like if I left I'd be able to go home anyway because I was still waiting for Shawn).

At 1145, the manager on duty came out and started handing out the wristbands signifying that you were one of the first 40. Imagine my surprise when I was actually customer 39 and got a wrist band. And shortly after that point, the group of kids at the front realized that they were going to have to purchase $40 worth of clothing to even get the camera and they decided it wasn't worth it so they gave their wrist bands to the people behind me.

It was about this time that Shawn joined me as he had found out that the item he wanted at Best Buy was already sold out (as Best Buy also hands out vouchers for their high ticket items). And so we commenced with our plan of 'get in, get out.' With the added benefit of "get a free camera! Yay!"

Now to do shot comparisons between my existing point and shoot and the new one.

1 comment:

Bond said...

I am so half hearted that I tried to do the online thing at about 9:30am on Friday. The Old Navy website was super slow, so I had one browser window open to search and the other with my cart (took about 5 minutes to add each item to the cart). I had everything in my basket ready to check out when I closed the window on accident! By the time I went back, David's sizes were sold out and I really didn't want to get just mine so I told him we'd just pay full price and then he said he'd just prefer to go buy suits anyway. At least I didn't have to leave the house.