This morning Kim and I went to Half Price Books in Apple Valley to cash in on their $5 gift card for the first 100 people deal. We have never participated in a Black Friday line-waiting event but being that I really wanted to get $10 worth of free books, I figured what the hell.
Arriving at 5:15 AM and rounding the corner I was surprised to see a good sized line had formed already and later found out that it was actually for Radio Shack, whew. As we parked, facing towards Wal-Mart (which will now become the fifth grocery store in Apple Valley and the 4th one within a third of a mile) I saw that the line outside of JoAnn Fabrics was doubling the size of Radio Shack.
Now, I am not a shopper nor do I really care about Black Friday sales but to wait in a huge ass line for JoAnn Fabrics must mean that they are fucking giving shit away. It wasn’t until later, while waiting in the line that eventually formed for HPB that I learned why people were waiting in the cold for so long… They wanted first pick at the fleece and flannel prints that JoAnn Fabrics had on sale. One of the teenagers in line behind me said that her friend was hosting a flannel sewing party later and wanted to have enough material on hand. Oh how times have changed for teen partying.
I was equally as shocked to see the number of people lining up outside of Radio Shack. I think that the 50 to 75 people in line had to be the most that store saw for the last two months or more. What the fuck do people buy at Radio Shack anymore other than mobile phones? Hell, I looked in and only saw mobile phones and a display for a noname brand GPS unit (stick to Garmin people, seriously) and some shitty overpriced printers (buy a $20 printer from Wal-Mart, the fucking ink cartridges empty at the same rate no matter who you buy from). The people inside went from waiting in a line outside to immediately waiting in line inside. Ridiculous.
While we should have been #1 and #2 in line, we opted to wait in the car until people actually started queuing up before I we got out of the warm car to wait in a line in the cold. I ended up being #3 in line and Kim held out until about #20 or so. Thankfully we lined up when we did because soon, as Radio Shack and JoAnn let out, the line reached lengths not seen before by either store. Who would have thought?! I guess $5 free is $5, eh?
At 7 AM on the dot we were let in to roam the store and check our free tote bags to see if we had been the lucky $100 gift card recipient. Neither Kim nor I were but we walked out of the store paying $1.38 (because Kim refused to get the $1 books like I did and her $5 didn’t cover it all). I actually only spent $3.56 after the 20% discount and am now kicking myself that they didn’t give me the card back to use the remainder :(
I made a list of books I was missing or those that I had and went in armed to the teeth to raid the cheap racks. My back went out on Wednesday morning rendering me unable to walk for most of the day and it still hurts pretty horribly right now so I wasn’t able to peruse the lower discount racks for CDs so I only nabbed books. While I only got one of the authors I regularly collect, I did end up with three Patricia Cornwell books to add to my collection of one. Not bad for free!
While waiting in line Kim heard about 99 cent poinsettias at Home Depot so afterward we swung over there and got two for our fireplace. We’re having people over on Saturday for dinner, so they will be nice and holidayish to go with the season.
Overall a nice morning to spend freezing my ass off for $8.56 worth of free books.
Did you go shopping on Black Friday? Did you wait in line for any amount of time for those early morning specials? Do you do it every year or was this your first? Do you think people are fucking crazy for doing it? Whatever it is, comment on!
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November 28th, 2008 at 9:25 am
My wife, up until this year, was always one of those crazies for free crap at Burnsville Center but with the new youngling this year she opted out although the $299 26″ LCD HDTV @ Target has me intrigued (but I found the same model w/built-in DVD player online for hte same price).
November 28th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Bill said “One of the teenagers in line behind me said that her friend was hosting a flannel sewing party later and wanted to have enough material on hand. Oh how times have changed for teen partying.”
Did you beat her up and call her a nerd? Maybe it was drunken sewing? Lame either way.
November 28th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I saw a whopping 8 people waiting to open up IKEA. All I wanted there was (free) breakfast, but assumed they were opening early. Meh, I turned around and left.
November 29th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Years ago I had plans to do “black friday”, then while driving home on Thanksgiving night glanced over at the Apple Valley Supertarget at 8pm only to see shadows of people, tents, and camping chairs and that quickly put an end to that thought, until this year. While in West Bend WI visiting family staying in a hotel a half mile from a 24 hour superwalmart. Store opened at 5 am, i rolled over in bed at the hotel at 4:10 got in the car pulled into a decent parking spot by 4:20, surveyed the store for a few minutes and ended up walking out with a LCD TV and 6 or 7 great priced toys for my daughter, the only bummer being waiting in line for 45 minutes which was not bad considering how much I was able to get and the prices.