Black Friday Shopping

Well here's my scoop on our Black Friday shopping. I've been going Black Friday shopping for many years now. At least 15 years I'd say if not a few more! I always usually go with my mom, sister or by myself. If you remember from yesterday I said that Greg was going to go with me shopping. Well, he stuck to his word and he did go out to the stores with me. We left the house right around midnight and headed to Toys R Us. They had some drums on sale that we wanted to get for Evan for Christmas from "Santa." We got to the store to find a line of course. No surprise there. I dropped Greg off to get in line, and I went to park the car. By the time I found a parking spot and got back to the line to meet Greg he was almost up to the door. The guy working at Toys R Us stopped me as I approached Greg and said, "Miss you'll have to go to the end of the line." I questioned him because there were other people in front of me going to get in line with their family and he said nothing to them. They had done the same thing and dropped a family member off to get in line. He said, "Miss you'll have to go to the end of the line. I didn't see them, I saw you." Greg was ticked to say the least and I was not happy with my unfair treatment to start off my shopping. I was one person getting in line with my husband while the others were three or four people joining their group. I thought Greg was about to get out of line because he was so mad, but he didn't. I told him go on in and I'd find him at some point. The line moved quickly and I was in the door a couple minutes later. I saw Greg ahead and we were all packed in there like sardines. I really was tempted to turn around an go out because it was making me claustrophobic, but there really was no way out. After moving through the crowd I found the drums and right after spotted Greg again. We got the drums and there was so much chaos as to where the check out line was supposed to be that we were told to go in all different directions. We finally found the end of the check out line and it was wrapped all around the store. We stood in line for about 2 1/2 hours and were in the store for a total of about 3 hours before we finally got to check out. As we got to the checkout line we discovered that there were two lines going for the checkout. The people coming from the other checkout line were people we saw come into the store after us and were checking out at the same time as us. During the time we were in line apparently the employee directing the checkout line got overwhelmed and she up and quit her job. So instead of management taking over they just let people split the line and make their own new checkout line and those people got to check out much faster than us. Needless to say many of us weren't happy! All the employees were rude and the manager, who was not worthy of being called that, (come to find out he was the guy who stopped me on the way in and told me to go to the end of the line) was pretty much clueless about anything. It was the most disorganized Black Friday shopping I've ever seen. You would've thought that Toys R Us had never done Black Friday before. At least we got our drums, and I know Evan is going to be super excited when he sees what Santa brought him Christmas morning!

Our original plan was to go home after Toys R Us and sleep for a little bit before we headed back out for more shopping when Target opened at 5am. Since it was 3am when we got out of Toys R Us (later than we expected), we decided it wasn't worth going home. We headed over to the mall to see if we could get the free Lego Rockband for the Wii that they were giving away. We got there about ten after three and there was no line to get into the store so we walked in. I asked if they had any left and the gal told me no. I overhead someone saying they hardly had any to give away so I'm guessing they probably only had five to ten and it was just a ploy to get people in the store. By this time we were pretty tired since we were both up at 6:30am on Thanksgiving morning. We sat down on a bench for a little bit in the mall and thought we'd go to Younker's when they opened at 4am. After sitting there for about a half hour, the line for Younker's was quickly growing. We decided that the $7 camping lantern we thought about getting or the Christmas tree on sale I wanted to check out wasn't worth it, by the time it would take to find the stuff and stand in line to checkout.

We left the mall and decided we needed some caffeine so we headed over to Biggby for a coffee. We didn't know if they'd be open, but we thought we'd go see anyway. Sure enough they had opened at 3:30am. We got our drinks, parked it in the comfy chairs and chilled for about an hour. There was quite a steady flow of customers in and out. Some interesting people to say the least. This one girl walked in about 4am and she had on stilettos, metallic (very tight) leggings, and a very low cut shirt on. We were guessing she wasn't going out Black Friday shopping, but rather she was just finishing her night! The three guys working there were a little too chipper and loud for 4am, and the music playing was a little too loud as well. It was even too loud for an afternoon visit to Biggby let alone 4am!

Finally we headed over to Target about 4:45am and the line was wrapped around the building and the parking lot was packed. We decided we weren't standing in the line and would wait in the car until everyone went in. Well the line started moving at 5am and then about five minutes later it stopped and we decided enough was enough. Screw it because we weren't going to get what we wanted anyway. It was then we decided we would head home and go to bed. We got in bed about 5:40am, neither of us could make it 24 hours to stay awake. Well, we probably could of, but it wasn't worth it just to say we were up for 24hrs straight.

We woke up about 10:20am thanks to the garbage truck. About 11am we headed back out to Target to see if there was anything left. We got a couple things on our list which I was surprised were still there. We headed to Walmart later that afternoon (we had decided to skip Walmart too after Target at 5am because they were crazy busy too) and they still had lots of items that were 5-11am doorbusters that were still available at the doorbuster price at 2:30pm. So I was glad we didn't try to go at 5am.

We picked the kids up in the afternoon from Greg's mom's and of course Evan wanted to stay longer when we got there so since Em needed a nap we took her home to nap. I took a nap as well for about an hour and a half. Then Greg's mom took us to dinner so that was nice I didn't have to cook after a long and very tired day! We really appreciate her keeping the kids all night and most of today so we could do some shopping and get some rest! In all my years of Black Friday shopping, I'd have to say this had to be the busiest I've ever seen the stores. It was also the most unorganized year for all stores I'd say, not to mention the rudest employees I've ever encountered. My sister said it was the same way by her down in Indiana. It really wasn't a good year for it to be Greg's first Black Friday shopping experience. I'm guessing if I go next year I'll have to go by myself!