Shopping Black Friday Madness

Ok, so I always thought that getting up early to hit the sales was fun. I stopped for a paper at Albertson's yesterday. Of course I was happy they were open on Thanksgiving so I could get my sale ads but I did feel bad that they had to be open on Thanksgiving Day for people like me. Any hoo, I went through the ads last night and nothing really jumped out at me, but I told Matt that I would go out if I happened to wake up. Well don't you know that I couldn't really sleep just thinking about the possibility of getting up. I went to bed dressed so I wouldn't have to waste time looking for clothes. I was up at 3:10 and ready to hit the stores. There was a small item at Best Buy that was a good deal and I decided I would hit them first since they opened at 5am. I thought I should get a pretty good place in line if I am there before 4am. WRONG!!! I got to Best Buy at 3:30am and the parking lot was pretty full already. I went to the end of the line that was all the way around the corner and literally going behind the back of the building. I couldn't help but laugh as I was making the long walk. People were there with their sleeping bags wrapped around them, camping chairs were set up and some tarps. Seriously....did these people sleep here? I stood in line for about 20 minutes when a guy came back to use the porta-potty and said that he had landed the second place in line....however he had been there since 5pm on Thanksgiving Day. I decided to leave at that point. There was no way the small item I was going for was still going to be there. So I decided to hit another store not far from there for an item for Matt. I really didn't think there would be people at that store yet, WRONG!! It was now only 4am and this store didn't open until 6am and there was already a significant line. Are your serious??? I was determined that I was not going to go home empty handed since I had gotten up so early. So like many others I waited out in the cold for 2 hours until the doors opened.
About 10 minutes before the doors were to open the store people came around and handed vouchers to you for the item that you wanted. If they ran out of vouchers before they got to you then you were out of luck. I was saying, please let me get the items I want and not have been out here for 2 hours to actually really go home empty handed..... Lucky for me I got the vouchers I needed. SCORE!!! The guy that was standing in front of me was in line for a laptop and unfortunately for him they ran out of vouchers just before they got to him so he had to get in his car and go home. Oh My Gosh!! I think that it gets worse every year. The other thing that was happening is that there was a line in front of me, but people would show up and not come to the back of the line. Apparently people were saving places for late comers and so the line in front of me was getting bigger than the line in back of me. Not fair. I do not have a line friend. The lady that was in front of me actually had pneumonia and was standing out there CRAZY, but she said that next year she would be my shopping buddy. I said only if she was the one that would stand in line and let me cut when I got there. She agreed. SCORE!!! I had to come straight home to get here in time for Matt to leave for work so I didn't get to finish my shopping. Now that Keegan is up we are heading out for more. I don't know if anything will be left but we will give it a shot. By the time we get home we will both be ready for a nap. YES.
Happy Black Friday Shopping to everyone who is crazy like me and gets up to do it.

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