Black Friday

This morning while millions??? many people were up before the sun even thought about rising, drinking their supposedly better than Starbucks McDonald's coffee (as if!) I was snuggled warm and cozy in my bed sleeping like a baby. Well, being kicked by a baby anyway.

Julia has been gone all week in Nashville and since she and Jenna sleep together that meant Jenna ended up in my bed. That would be me, Emma and Jenna, the notorious spinner, in my bed. Let's just say the last few nights haven't been my most restful.

Enough whining all ready, back to the story!

I'm not a shopper. Darrell loved to shop with me because I'm a "get in and get out" kind of girl. Since I don't really find shopping enjoyable, with crowds especially, it goes without saying that Black Friday isn't my cup of tea. But 2 years ago the kids and I went to Kentucky to visit my brother Dave and his family for Thanksgiving and I was introduced to a completely unknown world.

My sister-in-law Kaye is always looking for the best deals. She'll spend hours looking on the internet and sale ads looking for the best price. Not me, I'd rather be reading blogs, but 2 years ago I really hadn't been introduced to the blog world and Kaye was doing all the research for me. I must have had my head buried in some really big sand pile because I was completely clueless about Black Friday. But I told Kaye I was in the market for a new video camera since my had broken just that summer. I was also looking for Guitar Hero for Trace. Kaye did some a lot of research and told me I could get both at Best Buy. The key was I had to be there and buy them before 8:00 a.m on Black Friday morning to get the best deal. The store opened at 6:00. After some careful thought, Kaye decided we needed to be there by 5:00. That's A.M. As in After Midnight. As in Absolute Madness. I just didn't know it yet.

We got up and left her house by 4:45. My mother was there too and went with us. Black Friday turned out to be one of the coldest days in a really long time in Louisville, Kentucky and its really, really cold just before the sun comes up. I discovered this as I waited outside for FOREVER waiting to get into the store. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Kaye had just recently had surgery on her foot and was on crutches. When we got to the store the parking lot was completely packed and it was going to be hard for Kaye to walk so somehow it was determined that my mother and Kaye would look for a parking space and hang out in the warm car while I waited in line. Yeah.

So I got dropped off at the front of the store and started following the single line to the back. When I got to the back the line serpentined around several times in the back parking lot and I was at the very end. Sound familiar? Kind of Harry Potterish??? Well, I wasn't last for long. Just a short while later a couple of guys showed up, along with various other people over the next hour.

I must make a confession. I tend to be an eavesdropper while standing in line bored out of my mind. I mean, really, what else am I going to do? Some people were pretty quiet, some people were having very mundane conversations, but the 2 guys behind me, they were a completely different story. It turned out that these 2 guys, who I would guess to be in their early to mid 20's, had been at a bar until it closed, went somewhere else and weren't quite ready to call it a night so they decided to head over to Best Buy and see what was going on. Basically they were drunk, but they were happy drunks and very entertaining.

{Public Service Announcement: I in no way condone nor encourage others to get drunk for my own personal amusement.}

Okay, that's of the way.

The Wii had just come out and was really hard to get because of the short supply. (Not much has changed in 2 years, huh?) So these 2 guys started yelling "We want a Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"They even took turns running up and down the lines shouting it at the top of their lungs. They weren't so drunk that they didn't know they would lose their place in line if they ran together, although they were so entertaining I would have let them back in line just for my own amusement. As people started coming to stand in line behind us one of them pulled out his cell phone and pretended it was a tape recorder and he told them he was interviewing people for NPR. I have to say, it was pretty humorous and I giggled quite a bit. In between shivering that is. I would have even suffered through a cup of McDonald's coffee at that point. I was that cold.

A little after 6:00 the line slowly started to move. As we finally made it to the side of the building people were starting to come out of the store and get in their cars. My new friends were shouting at the people "Did you get a Wii???" Some people took them seriously and answered "No, they don't have any Wiis." Others looked at them like they were crazy and ignored them. And still others had no idea what a Wii even was. As we rounded the corner of the store and stood on the front sidewalk we got close to a police officer observing the crowd.

One of the guys volunteered to the policeman "We want a Wii!"

The officer did a double take and asked "Son, did you just say that you wanted some Weed?"

At this point, I was laughing so hard I was crying.

The guy put up his hands, shaking his head "No! No! We want a Wii. It's a game system."

The policeman looked him over with a dubious look "OK"

The guys were a bit more subdued after that. But they didn't have to be careful much longer, because we were soon through the magical doors and into The Promised Land. If I thought standing in line in the freezing cold for an hour and a half was bad, I hadn't seen anything yet.

It was absolute mass chaos. Items flying off the shelves, people practically running each other down. I got Trace's Guitar Hero but I couldn't get anywhere near the video cameras, let alone get a salesperson to get one out of the case for me. I decided it just wasn't worth the effort and went to find the check out line. After standing in another long line, although shorter than my previous one, I finally checked out. While waiting in the check out line I saw my new friends leaving the store empty handed.

"You decided not to get anything?" I asked them. (Yeah, I'll talk to anybody. Just ask my sister-in-law Janne' who laughed at the conversation I had with the guy at Starbucks at the drive thru speaker this past week.)

"No, they didn't have any Wiis. Besides, we just wanted to see the crazy people waiting to get in."

All righty then. Hope they weren't too disappointed. I know I wasn't.