Black Friday Frenzy
Rise and shine … it’s 3:00 a.m. Days of planning and strategizing all come down to this.
First stop – Walmart. I’ve never done Walmart on Black Friday before. What makes it different: The lines are inside versus the usual wait-outside-in-the-cold-and-dark lines. You would think that if people got there early enough, they would grab what they wanted and check out at 5 a.m. (the official start to the sale). But everything in the ad is roped off, on palettes, guarded by Walmart associates. They took the ropes down about 10 minutes early and the frenzy started. People were grabbing, pushing, trampling innocent bystanders. Just for a discounted memory card.
Top items on my list: a flash video device and digital photo frame. 50% off. Couldn’t pass it up. Downside: The photo department is one of the only places where you have to pay for it right there, so the line moved incredibly slow. I finally made my way out of the store around 5:30. By 5:30, it looked as if a tornado blew through the “main action aisles” (as the associates called them.)
Next stop: Toys R Us. Here, it is best to get in line first, then shop. The line snakes up and down the aisles, from the back of the store to the front. About an hour in line altogether. Just enough time to shop while you wait because they strategically placed all the sale items along the line’s route. Plus, you can easily make friends and swap watching-each-other’s-place duties.
Third stop: Best Buy. This by far had the longest pre-dawn line, but by 6:30, the store had half-emptied out. The line wasn’t bad and associates had the store pretty organized and actually made themselves available to help customers.
Last stop: Quail Springs Mall. Three hours of browsing the “doorbusters” and we were done with our day. When we left, the lines were still extremely long at JCPenney and Macy’s. Other than the department stores, the mall wasn’t too bad. Not overly crowded.
8 1/2 hours later, after the pushing, shoving, shouting, grabbing and spending we made it home, in one piece.
-Erica Smith, Copy Editor
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment