Black Friday 2009

I subscribe to a few of the Black Friday websites. They send me updates when a store releases a Black-Friday-dedicated circular. I perused the ads repeatedly, as I do every year, and after realizing that I can't even begin to afford anything that would be worth the wait in line (a conclusion I come to every year), Cale and I decided that we should go see what the fuss is all about.

At about 1:45am, we drove to the Best Buy parking lot. Holy Mother of Pearl! It may not have surprised me to find a person or two outside the doors, but there was a line! A line that began at the front door and literally wrapped around two corners of the building!

There were tents and tarps and lean-to type structures and portable stadium chairs. Caleb and I discreetly pointed and laughed at the huddled mass of crazy, sharing a moment of what almost seemed like superiority. Silly little crazy shoppers.

Then it happened. Across the street a giraffe beacon beckoned us. The curiosity overwhelmed us as we saw tens of people walking great distances with full bags. Looking around we could clearly see every parking lot within view was completely full. Toys R Us had been open since midnight, and in the two hours since, parking lots had filled up. As we entered the store I saw a crowd the likes of which I'd never seen before. I've seen movies that show shoppers in a frenzy and I've heard stories on the news where people get hurt or worse during Black Friday shopping, but I'd never really believed that kind of blind, obsessed chaos really existed. We did go ahead and make a round through the store, but of course we didn't buy anything. In fact, there were so many people we were barely able to even get close enough to items to actually see them. If we had decided to purchase something, it would have taken an hour (at least) to get to the checkout. The checkout line wrapped from the registers and snaked in and out of the aisles. Employees stood guard opening and closing ropes as a new space in their aisle became available.

Tonight we took a leap to crazy and back, and I've seen enough of Black Friday to really appreciate the idea of waiting for Cyber Monday!