Black Friday 2007!

I swore I would never do it. I was certain the last thing I wanted to do was go out on Black Friday to go Christmas shopping.

Why on Earth would anyone in their right mind want to deal with shoulder to shoulder crowds the day after Thanksgiving? I've spent years teasing devout bargain hunters who fight the mobs each year to get the best deals. The internet was built to avoid doing it, in my opinion.

So what prompted the change of heart? Simply put, the sales this year were too good to miss. I know a deal when I see one, and retailers discounted heavily to entice people like me to show up.

I was determined, too! My brother Thomas and myself camped out in front of Best Buy in Waldorf, MD the night before, determined to prove that we were serious about snagging the deals that the retail gods were offering.

It turns out that being determined requires freezing to death, as well. Sure, we dressed warmly. 2 pairs of socks, long johns, multiple sweatshirts, our Carhartt Jackets, all in a vain attempt to be well prepared.

At 8:30 PM, we arrived at Best Buy to find there were *only* 41 people ahead of us in line! The store was giving out vouchers for the deals at 3 AM, and we figured we could get our vouchers, run over to Sear's (who opened at 5 AM) to grab sales on tools, and get back to Best Buy to make our purchases there afterwards knowing that our precious vouchers ensured they had our gifts in stock.

9 PM, we realize that we may not have grabbed everything we needed to last the night. We never thought that waiting in line for 6 hours would be a teensy bit boring. No, how on earth could sitting in a chair freezing our rumps without any books, movies, games, food, etc. be unexciting?

Time to find a solution. A quick walking trip to 7-11 helped ease the hunger and boredom, and we picked up a few magazines to keep us entertained.

11:30 PM- 3.5 hours to go. The crowd there was fun, we traded magazines, chatted about peoples previous Black Friday experiences (someone claimed the line was 4x larger than the previous year) and discussed what we were hoping to buy when the store opened up at 5AM.

We managed to warm our hands up a bit thanks to a few of those nifty Hot Hands packets you see at the store, and met a couple of guys who had brought a football with them(They were obviously well-prepared bargain hunting professionals, unlike us). We played a little football, talked about how much we hated New England (Sorry, Pat's Fans!), and enjoyed the camaraderie of the whole thing.

2 AM- Thomas was sound asleep at this point, struggling to stay awake had been a losing battle for him(I may have rested my eyelids for a moment or two, but only because he was sawing logs at this point...). At this point we were both very cold, very tired, and very much ready to go home and enjoy sleeping indoors!

3 AM- They hand out our vouchers, and we take off for Sears. After we load up on our purchases there we decide that we should see just how busy the mall really is. Big Mistake.

To say the mall was packed would be an understatement. Shoulder to shoulder crowds pushed through the stores and I couldn't help but feel bad for the hapless clerks stuck behind the counters as wave after wave of shoppers move in and out.

We head back to Best Buy and grab the gifts our vouchers were holding and decide to head home. By 8 AM the rush is at full blast and trying to walk through the stores is nearly impossible. Laptops are being sold for less than $300, 52" LCD HD TV's for $1,500, and everyone is fighting to buy.

By 11 AM the sales were over and I was safely back at home, sleeping. I had my fun, got deals I couldn't have found online, and I can officially say that I went bargain hunting on Black Friday. My shopping for the season is almost complete, and if the deals are as good next year, I might just have to do it again!

~Jonathan Benya

Century 21 New Millennium

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