Whoever thought up Black Friday...

...Was really, really, dumb.

But yet, everyone, even when they have failed miserably in the past to get the item they wanted, still goes.

Why? I have no clue. But here's my Black Friday 2008 story.

So, as usual, the newspaper which comes on Thanksgiving has some of the most valuable ads of the year...the coveted After Thanksgiving deals. I'm not gonna lie, I love looking at ads on a regular basis, I think it's just fun.. but the Black Friday ad's? Oh boy, I can't hardly wait to look at them. Anyways, after waking up and eating breakfast, my mom, Kristalyn, and I began to dig through the paper. Even though we had looked online at the numerous websites which posted their ads before Thanksgiving, it just didn't compare to actually being able to see the hard copies (you know you agree). Being the poor, unemployed, college student I am, I really didn't have any money to spend on anything, but rest assured, I made sure to show my mom everything in the ad's that I wanted :-D My mom and Kristalyn, on the other hand, were very organized and wrote down all the things they might want to get.

























After looking at some of the ad's, Kristalyn found what she thought would be the perfect present for David! It was a great deal...An XBOX 360 Live with Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock, for a very reasonable price. Now, at this point, we realized we would probably have to get there at 5, when the store opened, to even get a chance at getting it. Well, trying to decide if we should go early or not brought back memories of last year, when Diana and I went to Best Buy, about three hours before it opened, and sat outside in the FREEZING (it was definitely snowing) cold, in order to get a computer that was also marked down to amazing price. Long story short--we didn't get it, and both of us vowed never to go again. Well, fast forward to this year, and while Diana did not go to any early morning deals, but I felt like I would have better luck going this year.

So I go to bed about...oh say, 12AM. The night went by way too fast. At 4:30, my alarm starts ringing very loud, and I realize it is time to wake up. So I throw on my hoodie, pull on some shoes (I was so disoriented, I forgot to get socks!) and go downstairs to wait for Kristalyn, my mom, and Michael. Kristalyn and I leave first, with her sweet baby Carter fast asleep in the back of the car, and my mom follows in her car with Michael. Kristalyn dropped me off so I could go get a place in line while she parked the car. We got there at about 5 til 5, and the line was completely wrapped around the side of the building. Greattt..Luckily we only had to wait a few minutes before the madness began and we were allowed inside. This is what it looked like as soon as the clock struck 5:
















So we inch our way in, and I run to the back of the store, in hopes of finding where the Xbox was. Well, I wander around for awhile, stand in a few lines, and am finally directed to the right place. I luckily was able to be fairly close to the front of the line, and I thought FOR SURE I would be able to get what I came for. Well, about an hour later, I was still standing in the same place, feeling extremely claustrophobic and lightheaded. Walmart is wayyy disorganized, and the cashiers were so slow. Finally though, the line started moving, and all of the sudden, one of the sales associates announces there are only 10ish Xbox bundle deals left. I hold my breath as she asked how many people were there for it. I let out a sigh of relief when I realized only three people in front of me raised there hands. I thought to myself, "I am SO lucky!" Well, my relief only last a few minutes, as I saw others than those three that raised their hands walk away with an Xbox AND a Nintendo Wii. Now, I guess it's not my place to say, but seriously, I'm really thinking that those people realized that the xbox's were in such short demand, that they would buy them, and sell them for more on Craiglist. I mean, why else would they all the sudden decide to buy one? I start to get worried as I see several people walk away, and then I realize I am almost to the front of the line. The Sales associate once again announces that there are only four left. She asks who was in line for them, and I see three people raise their hands in front of me once again. Then slowly, another man quickly decides to raise his hand. My jaw drops and I feel really sad. Then, I realize that one of the other people who raised their hands was a woman, who had cut to the front of the line about 20 minutes earlier. Now, at that point I didn't really care, I figured she wanted a GPS or something. However, at this point, I was so upset that she had done that, and made me miss out on the xbox I had waited in line forever for. I was not the only person who realized this. There was about six people around me who, almost at the same time, exclaimed that she had gone to the front of the line and didn't rightfully deserve to get that xbox. One woman even went up to her and confronted her, but the woman convienitenly couldn't speak English, but somehow was able to say that "her daughter had saved her spot". Now, if her daughter was a teenager, yes, this would make sense. But there are two problems to her story. One, her daughter was about two years old. If anyone knows anything about two year olds, they will not stay put in one spot, especially in a crowded store without their parents. And two, the biggest fault to her story, all of us had seen her daughter cut to the front of the line with her. The woman refused to move, and the rest of us talked about how incredibly rude and dishonest that was of her to do that. I even loudly talked about how my sister wanted to get her husband this Xbox because he was in boot camp and she wanted to get him something that he would really be able to enjoy, in hopes of someone in front of me feeling a singe of compassion, and giving theirs up (especially one of those people who obviously hadn't originally intended on buying it). This did not work. One woman next to me looked at me, and truly looked like she felt so bad, and said "I really wish you could have gotten that for your brother in law". She was nice. Anyways, I somberly stood in line for 10 more minutes, and got a GPS that my sister had also wanted. Needless to say, this was not a succesful black Friday trip! I also learned that people really should be more honest...Oh well, not much you can do about it! Walmart will not be a store I will visit again on Black Friday. It was so crowded, felt like I was in Mexico (I'm not saying that to be racist in the slightest...I swear that there was 1 white person for every 15 Hispanic people, it was crazy!), and it was so disorganized. At least I have a story to tell...I really can't get over it!

This is about how it looked!:





I hope all of you were more succesful than I was in my endeavours...well, there's next year right?