this year was my first taste of the craziness that is black friday. after only 3 hours of sleep in the past 39, i would do it all over!! growing up, my mom always went out, but we weren't allowed to go with her. things have changed since the days of most stores opening at 6 or 7 am the morning of. last year was the first year i had any interest in going out, but if you remember, i was headed to the hospital to meet my sweet baby boy!! (can't believe he'll be 1 tomorrow)
for a few months now, one of the top things on my boys' christmas lists was a car dvd player. after an awful road trip, we decided that was a priority. i signed up last year for an email alert when an ad was leaked pre-black friday. i have always loved looking through the paper thanksgiving night. about a month ago, i saw that target was going to have a dual monitor travel dvd player for 50% off. i knew i must try to get them somehow!
i mentioned to my sister-in-law, amy, that i wanted to go out and she jumped on board, too.
we headed out last night to toys r' us about 8:30.pm. they opened at 10pm and we were about 300 back. it only took about 10 minutes to get inside. boy, it was pure chaos and so not organized. we were both after play kitchens, and struck out...so we thought. amy ended up in line to get another small toy, and by the time i had gotten in line it was clear to the back of the store. i decided it was not worth it. amy on the other hand overheard someone saying they had more kitchens in the back so she asked and she was able to get one!
when we left TRU, the line was longer outside than when we went inside...craziness. after we saw how serious these shoppers were, we figured we better head on to target and stake out our spot in line. i forgot to tell you that earlier this week i went to all the area targets to count how many each store had so we could decide which store to pick. we stopped in at quik trip for a pit stop and hot chocolate. we got to target about 11:20 and were already 31 and 32 in line.
we quickly realized were under prepared for the task at hand. people were esentially camping out. we called lane to bring us some blankets and pillows and settled in for the long, cold night ahead. i remember first looking at my clock at 1:21am. i really enjoyed just getting to talk and hang out with amy. she's one of my closest friends. a little after 3, people started getting excited and we all stood up and took our things to the car. by 3:45, the parking lot was full and the line-cutters were out in full force. it was a funny sense of camaraderie with the people around us. when the employees would tell people to go to the back of the line, all of us who had endured the cold and no sleep would cheer. i looked at my clock at 3:59 and could feel the excitement and adrenaline pumping.
as soon as the doors opened, i started praying i wouldn't be trampled. we split-up knowing they were going to be in two different parts of the stores. i think our odds were good considering most people were after tv's!! i grabbed 2 and called amy right away. she had also grabbed 2 and said there were probably 200. great. i thought we were fighting tulsa for 7, and in reality we probably could've just walked right in at 4 and got one. oh well. it was fun and it was worth the 4.5 hours of cold for my sanity in the car! it was just as crazy in there. we wondered around for a bit, but as soon as the adrenaline wore off, we felt exhausted. i crawled in bed at 5:15 and slept 3 hours before my boys got up. we got out later this morning and hit up the mall.
we definitely learned a lot of things we would do differently next time, but overall, it was a successful morning!
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