Since the madness of Black Friday/Cyber Monday has passed, I shall regale you with my tale....
Black Friday....Yes, I am one of those crazy people that attend Black Friday sales (does this surprise you???) I would totally camp out for hours before the sale times if necessary, but we live in a small town that only has a Walmart. I've attended the Black Friday sales here for about four years now, and the first year wasn't too bad. There were only about 20 people lined up before Walmart opened, and year after it seems to get a little bit busier, but not as crazy as it is in the cities.
This year, i was late getting to Walmart for their 10pm sale-I arrived in the parking lot at 9:45pm. Immediately I started panicking when I saw that the parking lot was 75% full. I parked on the outer edge and ran (yes, I ran. I was on a mission.) to the store. I saw some bikes outside (I was shopping for my friend as well, so I needed two bikes) and threw them in a shopping cart (talk about awkward-one was a 16" & the other a 20"....and they were already assembled). I barely made it inside to the service desk without knocking anything or anyone over. They agreed to put my name on the bikes & hold them for me till i was done my shopping. Whew!
Next, I made my way around the main aisles of the store where all the goodies were- on pallets and in boxes. After retrieving just about everything on my list, I realized I couldn't find one item from the sales circular- men's socks. They were for my friend, so I desperately needed to find them. I asked several of the sales associates that were posted as crowd control and they pointed me in the general vicinity. After circling the store several times (and asking random customers), I came to the conclusion that no one had ever actually SEEN the socks, they just knew *WHERE* they should have been located. So, either these socks never existed, or they just just vanished because there wasn't even an empty pallet where they "should" have been.
As I continued my adrenaline-fueled journey, I saw a few of my friends who helped me find some of the missing items on my list that did exist, and I continued to throw things into my cart ("oooh...this looks like a good idea", "wow! that looks neat!"). Finally, I reached the check-out lanes. While there, I remembered the bikes I had at the service desk (I didn't need the boy's one anymore because I found one in a box, unassembled-fits into a closet better). When I arrived, the sales associates had changed shifts, and apparently my name was not placed on the bikes, so the girl's one (one I needed) was given to someone else who "claimed" it was theirs. I was mad. I was planning on finding this person and giving them "what-for". However, the CSM could see the fire in my eyes & refused to relinquish the name (small town). OS, desperate for the bike at the sale price, I rushed back outside to see if there were anymore. Thankfully, there were. I made my way back inside, bike in hand, and somehow managed to maneuver the cart out of the store (I did pay for it all) with the bike on top.
When I finally arrived at my vehicle, I opened the back hatch (Chevy mini-van) only to say "oh, crap". I had forgotten to remove our double-stroller before my "search & rescue" mission, leaving less room to shove stuff into. Somehow (after saying "oh, crap" a million times) I managed to cram it all in there with enough room to close the hatch. The End.
Then, I stayed up till about 3a.m. setting up all my Christmas decorations. I only slept because I had to watch kids in the morning and I knew I needed rest.
Black Friday....Yes, I am one of those crazy people that attend Black Friday sales (does this surprise you???) I would totally camp out for hours before the sale times if necessary, but we live in a small town that only has a Walmart. I've attended the Black Friday sales here for about four years now, and the first year wasn't too bad. There were only about 20 people lined up before Walmart opened, and year after it seems to get a little bit busier, but not as crazy as it is in the cities.
This year, i was late getting to Walmart for their 10pm sale-I arrived in the parking lot at 9:45pm. Immediately I started panicking when I saw that the parking lot was 75% full. I parked on the outer edge and ran (yes, I ran. I was on a mission.) to the store. I saw some bikes outside (I was shopping for my friend as well, so I needed two bikes) and threw them in a shopping cart (talk about awkward-one was a 16" & the other a 20"....and they were already assembled). I barely made it inside to the service desk without knocking anything or anyone over. They agreed to put my name on the bikes & hold them for me till i was done my shopping. Whew!
Next, I made my way around the main aisles of the store where all the goodies were- on pallets and in boxes. After retrieving just about everything on my list, I realized I couldn't find one item from the sales circular- men's socks. They were for my friend, so I desperately needed to find them. I asked several of the sales associates that were posted as crowd control and they pointed me in the general vicinity. After circling the store several times (and asking random customers), I came to the conclusion that no one had ever actually SEEN the socks, they just knew *WHERE* they should have been located. So, either these socks never existed, or they just just vanished because there wasn't even an empty pallet where they "should" have been.
As I continued my adrenaline-fueled journey, I saw a few of my friends who helped me find some of the missing items on my list that did exist, and I continued to throw things into my cart ("oooh...this looks like a good idea", "wow! that looks neat!"). Finally, I reached the check-out lanes. While there, I remembered the bikes I had at the service desk (I didn't need the boy's one anymore because I found one in a box, unassembled-fits into a closet better). When I arrived, the sales associates had changed shifts, and apparently my name was not placed on the bikes, so the girl's one (one I needed) was given to someone else who "claimed" it was theirs. I was mad. I was planning on finding this person and giving them "what-for". However, the CSM could see the fire in my eyes & refused to relinquish the name (small town). OS, desperate for the bike at the sale price, I rushed back outside to see if there were anymore. Thankfully, there were. I made my way back inside, bike in hand, and somehow managed to maneuver the cart out of the store (I did pay for it all) with the bike on top.
When I finally arrived at my vehicle, I opened the back hatch (Chevy mini-van) only to say "oh, crap". I had forgotten to remove our double-stroller before my "search & rescue" mission, leaving less room to shove stuff into. Somehow (after saying "oh, crap" a million times) I managed to cram it all in there with enough room to close the hatch. The End.
Then, I stayed up till about 3a.m. setting up all my Christmas decorations. I only slept because I had to watch kids in the morning and I knew I needed rest.
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