Black Friday

This year marks the first time that I have participated in that most American of traditions, Black Friday. Attracted by the low price offered by our local Target for one of the gifts we had decided to buy for the kids, Tracy and I decided to go shopping. Accompanying us on this expedition was our friend Donna. Thanksgiving night, we heard news of 300 people waiting outside the local CompUSA to be first in line once the store opened the next morning. It seems that the flame that attracted these moths was a $99 laptop computer. I don't know how many of the units they had in stock, but I am sure that there were not enough to go around. I later found out that a neighbor of mine parked himself in line at 6:00PM last night in order to get one of these low-priced units. He made the cut. I read the ad and I wonder how many of the prospective buyers realized that included in the price was a required 12-month subscription to Vonage priced at $300?

I did not expect to see anyone outside the Target, but after we arrived at 5:30AM this morning, there was, indeed, a snaking line of people outside desperate to feed their hard-earned money into the coffers within. So, after privately ridiculing my Brother in his failed overnight attempt to give the local Wal-Mart an absurd amount of money for a Sony PS3, here I stood at O dark thirty outside a retailer, trying to get in to drop my own cash. Ironic, isn't it.

Tracy, Donna, and I stood outside for 30 minutes watching the line triple in size. We were about 70 people back in line and I don't know how long some of these people were queued up. Promptly at 6:00AM, the doors opened and the crowd streamed in desperate to grab the $4 DVDs, the $180 LCD TVs, and assorted other items of interest. To make matters worse, I found myself sprinting to the section of the store that held the items I wanted to get. I had scouted the store Wednesday night, so I knew where everything would be. Tracy grabbed a cart, and obviously not trusting my ability to pick up the items of most interest, grabbed the two units we were looking for herself.

The reason for all this was news outside the store that Target only had 21 of the sub-$100 items we were looking for. It turns out they had more, and we got what we wanted. Most everything we went to buy was sold out in less than 15 minutes, so the day was a success.