Black Friday Adventures

The majority of my life Black Friday has consisted of me sitting at home, hanging out, enjoying the day off school. My mom always did her Christmas shopping on this day and was gone ALL day long. Around lunchtime my dad would heat up leftovers and we would all search for the rolls--my mom would hide them because she knew we would eat them all while she was gone, so instead she hid them so we couldn't do so. Once I got in college we would go to South Coast Plaza and pick out what we wanted and my mom would "take notes". 

This year I decided to see what all the Black Friday Hype was all about. I sat down after eating Thanksgiving with the family and looked through all the ad's. From Home Depot to Toys R Us I looked and looked to see if anything caught my eye. I was pleasantly suprised! Here was what I wanted/needed:

1. Item A (Cannot disclose because it is a gift for my mom)--Usually very expensive, but on sale for a VERY good price if I got the earlybird deal.

2. Cricut Expression- Wal-mart was selling them for $188! (Usually they cost $300+) 

3. Cricut Cartridges- $30

3. Roomba- $99! Andy and I have wanted one of these since we got married.

4. Christmas Decorations 50% off

5. Infant clothes- 60% off

6. Office chair- $35 (Usually $80!)

7. Space Heater for nursery- $19 (Usually $50)

After deciding getting no sleep would be worth all the great deals, I had to convince Andy that this was a worthwhile decision. I needed his help lifting items and wrestling people to the ground if necessary since I am in no condition to do so. 

Stop 1: Kohls. Store Opening: 4:00 AM, Arrival time of Team Coons: 3:20 AM.

I could NOT believe the amount of people in line already. I think Andy was in total and complete shock at how many people were as crazy as we were. We bundled up and got in line. We met Sue, who only wanted a waffle maker. Beth brought her two children with her so they could split up and get what the needed. By the time 4:00 rolled around the line almost wrapped the building! Our dilemma was we only needed 2 things, Item A and Roomba, but we needed to be out of Kohls by 4:15 in order to get to Wal Mart in time. When they opened the doors it was a mad dash to get our items. Within 30 seconds there were people EVERYWHERE!!! I couldn't believe it. Sue was pushing people to get her waffle maker, and I was frantically searching for the Roomba while Andy searched for Item A. We both found them, got in line, and were back in our car by 4:08. Phew! We made our deadline.

Stop 2: Wal-mart. Store Opening: 24 hours, putting out Black Friday items at 5:00 AM. Arrival of Team Coons: 4:20

We were most scared for this adventure. I wanted the cricut SO badly, but knew it was going to get hairy. I dropped Andy off to run in while I parked. I grabbed a cart and asked the first employee where the cricuts were going to be... he asked what a cricut was, and I went on to the next employee--obviously he didn't know. I found a woman who looked legit and she showed me a map of the store and pointed to where they were. I found Andy and we began hunting. There were people EVERYWHERE frantically searching for that one item they wanted most. Lines were forming for different items in anticipation for the 5:00 AM time. I needed to find the cricut line! Out of the corner of my eye I saw David--dressed in a shirt and tie with a tag that read "Store Manager"... he had to know where the cricuts were! I asked and he pointed to the electronic station and said, "Survival Alley". I then told Andy to make his way through and not come back until he found them. (**Sidenote, I had 2 hours of sleep and was not going to go through all this effort for nothing, I got a little ruthless--sorry love!) I then walked to the back of the aisle and sitting in front of me were the cricuts... only 2 left!! I just about fainted. I called Andy back and we put both in our cart. (My SIL wanted one too, so I we picked it up for her). YAHOO! We did it! We got the cricut. I was a little ticked that not one employee told us they were already out before the 5:00 AM time. Then I was ok with it because we got one! We then found the other items on our list and headed out. 

Stop 3: K-Mart. Store Opening: 6:00. Arrival time of Team Coons: 5:10. 

We were about the 100th person in line and by the time the store opened the line wrapped around Kmart. It was crazy! At one point the people in the front of the line got mad about something, tried to break in, and the cops came. We made friends with Bob who just wanted a Digital Camera for his son who is a senior. The lady in front of us didn't even look at the Ad! She just wanted to see what was on sale and grab as she went. At 5:55 they opened the doors. We ran in, grabbed a Roomba (they also had them on sale for $99, but it was a different model, so we bought both the one at Kohls and this one to see which was better and are going to return the one that we don't want), we got the space heater, the random christmas decorations we needed and called it a day! 

All our Black Friday Finds... it seriously looked like we robbed a store. 

Overall I think Black Friday was a huge success. We are both exhausted, but are so excited about our purchases and all the money we saved. We are done with all our Christmas Shopping and can't wait until next year. 

FYI- Kmart had the best toy selection and the best toy prices of the three stores we went to.