Black Friday roundup

I was advised by my beautiful wife not to write about my Black Friday experience, but I haven't had anything else worthy of blogging about in some time. Sorry. I decided earlier last week that I was going out on Friday to get a certain Blu-ray player that was on sale. I set my alarm and got up at 3:30am, drug my ass out of bed (cursing under my breath about how stupid this is), got dressed and drove to a certain unnamed retail store that was having a mega sale. I got there just before 4 am and was stunned to see that there was only 70 people in line. I figure my chances are pretty good, so I sat in my car for another 5 minutes trying to absorb as much heat as I could. I watched a few more people get in line so I figured it was time. I zipped up my coat and put in my ear buds to my iPod. Oh, did I mention that it was really frickin cold, in fact it was snowing but no biggy. I tried my damnest to stand there like a pro and not dance around. There was a lady in front of me that looked like she had to pee because she was tip toeing up and down. People kept looking at her like WTF mate? Finally this guy asked if she needed to go to the bathroom that he would hold her spot, but she insisted she was trying to stay warm. Another funny thing was that the store passed out maps of where there big ticket items would be at in the store. It was funny because the named all the areas as "Blank Action Alley" Where was my item you may be asking? "Back Action alley" no joke. Okay, moving on.

At about 10 minutes till 5am the inner doors of the store got unlocked and everyone went from standing in a nice straight line to immediately running for the doors. It quickly turned into a big crowd. Pissed me off. At about 5 minutes left a car drove by the line and a girl starting yelling out the window "you're not gonna get it!" Everyone laughed. Then another line formed for the other entrance. Instead of going away from the door to the corner of the building the other line ran into my line where the crowd was standing. So 5am hits and the f**kers (pardon my french) at the end of the other line just turned around and starting cutting in line while I was patiently waiting to walk in. The picture wasn't from my experience but it was close. So get this. As I am finally walking in (more like shuffling my feet because of the crowd) there was a woman in a wheel chair in front of me. I was being polite and letting her make her way down the over crowded isle. I over heard some jerk behind me say to her to "hurry up." It was so difficult to get all the way back to the electronics. By the time I made it back there (less than 2 minutes) all the Blu-ray players where gone. I asked an employee if they had any more but he said no. "I think we only had a dozen." Smart. You only have 12 of these players that yahoo ranked as one of the 10 best deals for Black Friday for over 200 people in line? Again, pissed me off. So I left. Empty handed and struck out. What a waste of my time. In retrospect the experience made me feel dirty and yet greedy. Sinner party of one. Right here.

On the drive home I decided to stop by anther store by the same name (there is like 5 of them in the greater Spokane area that I at least know about). Why didn't I just go to that one in the first place you might ask? Who knows. So I walk in at 5:30am and something magical happened. It was like the seas parting or something. There wasn't any crazy line. No massive crowds. No chaos inside or outside of the store. I walked right in and found the actual display. It was like pyramid of gold. There was over 50 Blu-ray plays on display with no frantic people around. I calmly picked one up from the stack and looked over my shoulder. No baseball bat, no purse flying at my head. I did it. I got the golden ticket. Mission accomplished. I had set out to what I intended to do. Then I later hear about the tragedy in New York about the dude getting trampled to death at a store opening. WTF?! It made me sick to my stomach to hear about it. I felt really bad as if I was there only I wasn't. I think if I do decide to do it again next year, I will wait to go after the store opens and avoid the whole line crap.