One thing Amber and I have in common is our love of good deals. I am a big purchase deal lover, meaning that if you got something that retails for $500 on sale for $200 I am interested. Amber is more of a small purchase deal lover, meaning if you got something under $5 or over 75% off in the craft or apparel world watch out (don’t even get me started on the $1 section at Target, or worse when the $1 section goes 75% off. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that has come through our door because, “I got these for only a quarter each”.) The point is, we both like a good deal, which makes Black Friday Perfect for us.
Our 2008 Black Friday in Dayton, OH:
Thursday 10PM EST: We arrive at CompUSA to look for a good deal on a LCD monitor I wanted ($150 for a 22″ LCD). When we arrive, I am dismayed by the completely full store and the small line of people forming for their 5AM Sale. It took me a second to realize what Amber apparently knew the entire time, you can’t show up at 9PM CST for a sale that starts at 9PM EST. I am not sure how I made the time zone mistake (other then my watch and Amber’s car are still in Central Time), but needless to say I left CompUSA empty handed. Which means no new LCD for me, I convince myself I really didn’t need it anyway.
Thursday 10:15 PM: We find a Dunkin’ Donuts that is open until 11 on the same side of town as CompUSA and plan the rest of our evening. A steady stream of people from the already 75+ people line out front of the nearby Best Buy (which opens at 5 AM) come in to buy coffee and use the restroom. The guy behind the counter, that already had to give up part of his Thanksgiving to work short staffed at a Dunkin’ Donuts looks thrilled. A few of the line waiters stop and talk with us, and I learn that people who wait all night in a line are usually Crazy (as in Certifiable) and very friendly (but still crazy).
Friday Midnight: I am sitting in the car at a mini-mall parking lot watching the snow fall outside and “Pushing Daisies” on my iPhone, Amber is waiting in a small line of mostly middle-aged women ready to bum-rush the doors at Simply Scrapbooks (ok, maybe not bum-rush, but they were standing out in the cold/snow waiting for a scrapbook store to open). The sale? 50%+ off all sorts of crafting supplies, PLUS TRIPLE CARD PUNCHES!!! You would have to talk to Amber to find out exactly how good of a deal this is, but she was excited.
Friday 2 AM: I am still in the car at the same mini-mall parking lot, the snow has slowed down (or at least I can’t see it as well because at 1AM they turned the parking lot lights off), my iPhone’s battery all but drained 20 minutes ago, and Amber has been craft shopping for 2 hours. Soon after Amber returns to the car with a smile on her face and a card full of punches.
Friday 3 AM: We are back at Amber’s house. Amber is showing me her spoils, and I have to admit compared to what she normally spends she got some really good deals. We are staying up the rest of the night because I want to go to Staples when they open at 6AM (which means get their at 4:30 AM). I then realize the only difference between me and the people outside of Best Buy is that I am sitting inside a warm house right now, it is a small difference but I hold on to it.
Friday 3:30 AM: Staples posts some of their Black Friday deals online, I pounce and get some of the things I wanted. Now I am feeling elated that I won’t have to wait in line after all! I then notice something so fantastic that I had to reload to make sure it was real. Staples online has their own 22″ LCD Monitor for $150, a deal not available in-stores. Needless to say I pulled the trigge, buying the last of the items on my black friday list. I then did something I never had done before (mostly because I have never been up shopping online at 3:30AM before). I posted my deal on Slickdeals.net, which is the online deal site I (along with tens of thousands of people) use all the time (it helped me get my laptop for $800 off). The way slickdeals works is you post a deal on a forum, people rate the deal and if it is good enough it gets put on the front page (kind of like a mix of slashdot and digg, only for deals). I was heartened to see positive comments on my post immediately, but I was also very tired. At about 4:30 AM Amber and I finally went to bed.
Friday 1:30 PM: We wake-up, realizing in full what we have done to our sleep schedules, and I go online to see how my post did. And I see this:
That is right, my deal made the front page of Slickdeals! By now reaching 14,000 views and over 100 comments! You can look at the thread here, but the deal is unfortunately dead now. I will admit it isn’t my finest writing, but it was 4AM and I was very tired.
So that is my story of Black Friday ‘08. We ended up getting everything we wanted (except sleep) and didn’t even have to brave many crowds to do it! I hope all of you had similarly good experiences (probably for most of you it involved sleeping and laughing at people like me).
