Black Friday

Okay, so this whole Black Friday thing has massively changed since I left the country. Stores used to not open at 3am. My reaction – this is ridiculous. Call it sitting at home and being bombarded by the ads, call it spending all day Thanksgiving looking at the sale papers, I started to warm to the idea slightly, mostly because I really want a Dyson vacuum cleaner. We decided just to hit a couple of stores, A and I were headed to Old Navy at midnight and then a nap and then on to Sears at 4am for my Dyson.


As we were preparing to head to Old Navy I got a text from my best friend C in Kentucky who was camped out at Wal-Mart in line for a computer for her daughter for Christmas and bored. We talked for a bit and then on to Old Navy. Let me add that it was about 20 degrees last night, not the kind of weather you want to stand outside in. We waited in the car in the heat until they started letting people in the door and then went in. It was packed but not crazy packed where people were fighting over merchandise. I got a pair of jeans and A got two cardigans, unfortunately no jeans for her because they never seem to carry her size in long. I felt like it was a successful trip in that we bought nothing unnecessary which easy to do when you get caught up in the frenzy.

We came home and went to sleep. A was pumped and saying she would be ready to go for the Sears run at 4. At 3:30 she wasn’t moving so I bundled up and headed out myself. Sears is an interesting place to go on Black Friday, especially if you enter by the tools. I always thought of this ritual as a women’s only event but not so! The men were running around the tool department like their pants were on fire. There must have been some crazy good deals.

I made the fatal mistake with Sears…I had no idea where the vacuums were in the store. Bad move J, reconnaissance would’ve helped. Then as I realized they were upstairs I made another stupid move, getting into the elevator because it was close instead of looking for the escalator. I think the doors attempted to close five times before they actually did as people kept piling in, nothing like getting stuck behind the fatal baby buggy. As I finally made it up to the Dysons, the DC 14, the model I’d had my eye on for the price, were all gone. I grabbed a DC 17, which I’d also done some research on and headed to a salesperson in the mattress department who was helping out, just to see if she would scan it and tell me what the price was. As I stood there waiting for her assistance, in front of me was a woman who was buying two of the DC 14s and talking out loud to her granddaughter asking her, “Am I buying the right one?” and also yelling for her daughter who I guess was running for another bargain. She turned around and looked at me and the box that I was carrying and she started saying to her granddaughter in a particularly shrill voice, “What kind does she have? What’s different about that one?” as if I was invisible. It was as if she had gotten caught up in the moment, grabbed two vacuum cleaners and headed to the register and was going through the stages now of uncertainty and maybe buyer’s remorse. Meanwhile I was standing there thinking it’s way too early for this shit. After the salesperson scanned the price and I went into sticker shock, I put the vacuum cleaner back and headed home. When I got there I got online on Sears and actually bought the DC 17 for a much reduced price and went and picked it up at that very same store later in the morning. I don’t understand how these things work sometimes. I would have bought it on the spot if they would have given me that price in the store, but instead I had to go home click send on my computer and go back later.

When I returned to pick up my Dyson, I also stopped at the Borders across the street with my free latte coupon in hand.  That was the best deal of the day.  Borders was absolutely civilized and I got a completely free latte as I browsed.  Heaven.

Oh, on my way home about 4:45am I drove through the parking lot of Best Buy just to see the line. It was enormous. Whenever I see those Snuggie commercials where they show people wearing those things outside I think to myself yeah right, someone would actually do that. Well, I’m here to tell ya that in Utah at 4:45am there was more than one person in a Snuggie in line at the Best Buy. Every once in awhile there is truth in advertising.