Black Friday

I consider shopping on the day after Thanksgiving about as fun as getting a tooth pulled. You have to fight for parking spots with 250 million other Americans who also decided to go shopping, then fight with them again to get the last couple remaining whatever you are looking for. Of course the retailers encourage this chaotic annoyance by advertising specials that are only good for the first day or first few hours on Friday. This year I stuck my head in the mouth of the tiger – I went shopping on Black Friday and, yes, it was blog worthy.

The story starts with my parent’s laptop. It basically died about the same time I got back from Bulgaria. For the last two weeks I have been listening to both of them complain about it several times per day. Obviously they have learned from my younger sister that if you complain about something long enough you will finally get your way. My sister, her fiancé and I decided to end the complaining and all chip in $200 and buy my parents a new $600 laptop.

About the time we decided to buy the laptop I noticed a newspaper insert from Best Buy. For the first 7 hours of Black Friday they were offering some amazing discounts on laptops. $600 laptops were selling for below $300 in some cases. The catch was that each store only had a limited number of the specially priced laptops. The other catch was that Best Buy opened at 5am, so if you were going to get something you needed to be there early. In an effort to save hundreds of dollars I decided to shop on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

When it comes to sales, people are crazy. I know this – therefore I decided to set my alarm clock for 1:45am to make sure I got to Best Buy by 2am. At 4am they were going to start handing out tickets for the discounted items and I wanted to make sure I was there early. I dragged myself out of bed and headed out to Best Buy – luckily it’s only a few minutes away from my parents house. The temperature was in the low 40’s and it was still raining lightly from the previous day’s downpour. I knew there were already going to be people in line when I got there, the only question was how many.

When I got there I learned the answer to the ‘how many’ question – and the answer was ‘a lot’. Already waiting in line were about 150 people with their tents, chairs, rain covers, etc. Damn. Still, I decided to take a place in line and hope for the best. There were 3 laptops they had discounted and I was hoping some of those in front of me would be going for new TV’s, cameras, or the like. My place in line put me about a quarter of the way around the store. Luckily after about 20 minutes of my arrival the rain stopped for good. For the next several hours people were arriving and adding to the line – each with a “I can’t believe how many losers got up so early to wait in line” look in theur eyes. They guy standing behind me actually tried to go to the Worcester Best Buy first but the line was too long so he drove out to this “short line” instead. Note that there were no PS3’s being offered this morning so everyone was waiting for the other stuff.

Now I waited … and waited … talked a bit with those around me and then waited some more. Finally 4am the staff started coming around handing out tickets for the deeply discounted items. The first people in line got first crack at the tickets. The good thing was that the rules were only 1 ticket per person so no one could buy more than one special item. The bad thing was everyone in front of me wanted laptops. The laptop tickets didn’t even get close to me. Still, it was now 4:30am so I figured I’d wait another half hour to see what I could find inside amongst the non-special items. I had my eye on a projector that was almost 50% off, yet for some reason didn’t make the ticket list meaning it was first-come first serve. I hoped no one in front of me was also looking for a projector.

At 5am the line was now around the entire building. They started letting in people 30 at a time so as to prevent serious trampling. I rushed inside to the TV section to look for projectors. There were some there, but not the one I was looking for. A Best Buy employee punched it on the computer and saw they did have 5 in stock. He looked around but didn’t see any. He suggested I go to the computer section. The computer section was now about as organized as the LA riots. People were swarming everywhere. I looked around but didn’t see any projectors. Now I was getting worried. I was wasting valuable time and people were still streaming in the front doors. I went through a couple more clueless Best Buy employees before I finally found one who located the projectors. The problem was they were high up on a shelf and he needed to get a ladder. Standing below the shelf was a woman who was also looking to buy the projector. Soon after, two guys show up wanting to buy it – finally spotting where the projector lay hidden. I made sure to let them know this was now the line, there were 5 projectors available and they were #3 and #4. The Best Buy employee comes back with a step ladder. The four of us stuck on him like fly on poop to ensure no other customers encroach on our claim to a projector.

He sets up the ladder and climbs up to the top of the shelf and starts handing down projectors – first the lady, then me, then the two guys. Whew – at least the trip wasn’t a total loss. As the kid was handing down the projectors, groups of customers caught wind of what was going on. I don’t think they were looking for anything in particular – they just wanted a deal and could smell something good. As I was walking away I saw the kid at the top of the ladder holding the last projector. Below him were about 30 people all desperately trying to reach for that last projector. Good luck everyone.

I made my way to the cash register (where I had to wait in line for about 30 minutes) and headed home for a couple more hours of sleep before driving up to my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Vermont.

Although I didn’t get one of the super discounted laptops, I stopped by Best Buy again on my way back from Vermont (it was much calmer this time) and found a decent laptop for just under $600. Not as inexpensive as the other ones, but still ok. I picked it up and hope I am finished with Best Buy for the rest of the season.

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