November 23, 2007

Black Friday


This year was a crazy one. I decided I wouldn't sleep last night after Thanksgiving dinner. The stores were opening early and I needed to bust some doors.
At 12:30am I was in line at the mall near my house. It was opening at 1. Last year I missed out on all the opening festivities so I swore that I would get my VIP pass and coupon book this time around. I reached my goal but it was pretty useless. There was free samples of Pepsi and the coupon book was actually just a listing of all the sales that were going on pre-11am. I browsed a but and fought through crowds and entered a few raffles, but, all I ended up purchasing was a gift for one of my cousins.
At 2:10am I left the mall and went across the street to wait in line at Best Buy. According to the weather application on my phone it was a cold 24 degrees. For those of you who haven't done Black Friday at stores like Best Buy it's not just a rush-in-free-for-all... it's actually quite organized. You wait in line and at 3:00am they start handing out tickets for their limited supply door busters. They walk down the line and ask if people need a ticket. People had been camping out since midnight... and I mean camping out... so I was pretty far back in the line. The employees will hand out the tickets starting at the front of the line and they stop when they run out of tickets. I was hoping I'd be able to get what I came there for... which was a 42" plasma TV, a TomTom GPS system, a Sony laptop, and an e-Machine. Finally at 4:00am I had a ticket for the plasma and the GPS. The laptop tickets didn't make it to my section of the line and I hadn't heard about the e-Machine... so, I left. I drove home and dropped off the tickets for my parents. With the ticket you're guaranteed the item as long as you pick it up before 9:00am. Best Buy still technically wouldn't open their doors until 5:00am and I wasn't about to wait another hour.
So, dropped them off, and drove out to the outlet mall about 15 minutes from my home. My cousin had been working since 12:00am--the time the outlet mall opened. I stopped in to visit her at Banana Republic which was having a 40% off sale. I picked out about $250 worth of clothes and she offered to buy them for me with her employee discount which would be an extra 30% off. I ended up only paying $110. Good deal. =)
Left the outlet mall and headed off to Michael's to use a 25% off coupon. I had been hoping to get my hands on some Lion Brand Cashmere Blend... but, they didn't carry any. So, I ended up getting some crochet thread (I'm gonna be churning out those bookmarks this Christmas) and I decided to try some Paton's SWS. I had been seeing and hearing a lot about it so I allowed it to jump into my basket. ^_^
It was now about 6:30am so I went home, dropped all my purchases on the floor and crashed into bed.

That was Black Friday 2007. =)

Knit hard!

3 comments:

Joan said...

Woah, I admire your tenacity!

Nikki said...

Are you serious?! I didn't even know it was that extreme. I had heard of sales even as early as 4, but beginning at midnight? I think they trick folks. Usually those sales aren't any better than what I see throughout the year. So, what happened with the TV? I got my Shuffle at Best Buy on a black Friday, but at something like 8 or 9am. There was no sale on it anyway.

Courtney said...

You are a brave man! The only shopping I did was at my LYS.
I don't think I have the stomach for that but I'll bet you got some great deals.
I just bought 3 skeins of Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Indigo because I just had to have it and all your Malabrigo postings were so enticing. Any suggestions for what to make?
I would like to use all three for one project.