Black Friday

Black Friday is probably the craziest shopping day of the year. The media would say it is definitely the busiest. Well, in the past, Melinda and I have dabbled in the Black Friday rush.

In 2003, when we were in North Carolina, we ventured out with my mom at 7:00 am. The lines were crazy. Hot dog vendors were out peddling food and a lady collapsed of heat exhaustion.

For 2005, Marissa, Mat, Mitchell and I checked out Best Buy, only this time, we were in Michigan. I can’t remember anything about the weather, but we did stand in line for 90 minutes to buy a dishwasher, portable DVD players and a few other assorted things. It still cracks me up to think that Mitchell and Marissa carried around the portable DVD players the whole day and had no idea that was one of their Christmas gifts.

Black Friday 2006 didn’t seem half bad. We weren’t really looking for anything specific, but we stopped off at the hospital first to see Becki and Hailey since Hailey had just been born. After that, we went over to Twelve Oaks to have a Mac Genius take a look at my Power Mac and browse. There really weren’t too many lines in Novi, though my dad reported a 90 minute line at Best Buy.

Fast forward to Black Friday 2007. Melinda had checked out the ads early in the week and she had her eye on a couple of things for Mat, Mitchell and Marissa. Since the kids may see this entry, let us just say that we were looking for a blender for Mat, an electric razor for Marissa and a Bratz video game for Mitchell. Anyway, all 3 things were limited quantities, more than 50% off and “Door Busters.” Since they were “Door Busters,” they were handing out vouchers at 3:00 am on Friday morning!

Now, before I go further, you would think that I would be the one pushing for an adventure to Best Buy at 3:00 am. If you thought that, you would be wrong. Melinda thought we would have to be there early to guarantee our items.

After some persuading by me, Melinda and I decided not to go to bed, but to watch TV until 1:45 am and then drive up and wait in line at Best Buy. We thought if we arrived 30 minutes early, we would be one of the first few people in line. Boy, were we wrong.

We arrived at 2:25 am and the line was all the way around to the back of the building. I must have missed all the news reports showing people pitching tents in front of the store on Thanksgiving day.

By 2:30 am, we had settled in, wrapped in blankets and freezing our toes off. Since so many others were waiting just like us, it didn’t take long to strike up friendly conversations with others and before we knew it, it was 3:00. Time to get the vouchers!

Melinda and I got lucky because most people were there to get big ticket items like TVs and laptops. Sorry Mat and Mitch, you aren’t getting a TV or a laptop. That much I can let you in on. By 3:30, we had our vouchers and all we had to do is weather the cold until 5:00 am when they would let 100 people at a time into the store to shop their hearts out.

Melinda wanted some hot chocolate, so I drove up to the gas station to get her some. On the way, I checked out other stores like Target, Meijer and Circuit City. With the exception of Circuit City, which was still not as bad, no place had a line that even approached Best Buy.

By the time I got back from getting hot chocolate, it was 4:15 am and we were in the home stretch. At 5:00 am, they started letting people in and by 5:05 am, we were in the store grabbing our items. Since they handed out maps to the store at 2:45, we had a pretty good idea where to go for each item. Best Buy had corded off isles and put tape arrows on the ground to direct traffic and it seemed to work well. Since we grabbed our stuff fast, we really didn’t have any sort of checkout line to deal with. By 5:15 am, we were checked out and back in the car.

Now, we had one more place to go at 6:00 am; A store that I cannot mention for risk of giving away another gift. During our wait in line at Best Buy, a woman came by and handed out a free day membership to Sam’s Club and since they opened up at 5:00 am, we wasted some time there.

At 6:00 am, we visited the store that will remain nameless until after Christmas, then hit Leo’s Coney Island for some breakfast and we were home before 8:00 am.

Is this something I would do again? Probably. It was pretty fun in retrospect, though I was SOOOOOO tired on Friday. Nothing a nap didn’t cure. I think that next year, I need to go to North Carolina where it won’t be so cold waiting in line at 2:30 in the morning.

Oh, I almost forgot, later Friday morning, Mandy, Chris, Emma, TJ and I went back out to the mall and it wasn’t too bad. Then, Friday night, Melinda and I went out to dinner and cruised by the mall again to look around. Yeah, call me crazy, but since we didn’t have the kids at night, Melinda jumped at the chance to look around the mall in peace.

MacLachlan...Out!