Friday, November 23, 2007

Black Friday Vent

Yes, I went shopping on Black Friday. I wasn't exactly planning on it, but last night I saw some decent prices on one of the Black Friday deals aggregator web sites. Still, I wasn't planning on doing, well, anything today, good deals or not.

Then the dog ABSOLUTELY HAD TO GO OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW! at 5:35 AM, and I was awake and couldn't get back to sleep. So I said "screw it" and drove up to Office Depot (they had good prices on what I actually needed), thinking (correctly) that they wouldn't have the people crazy enough to camp outside. I passed Best Buy on the way home last night: the tent people were already out there, at 9:00 PM or so. So when I got to Office Depot, there were only 20 or so people in line at the door, with only five minutes til the doors were scheduled to open. "Sweet!" thought I, "I'll be able to get in and out and home in time for the second half of the morning news."

I was wrong.

There was only 1 manager with the keys to the locked cases, where approximately half of the "must-have" deals resided. There was only one register open, so the line reached 50 people deep (literally; I stopped counting the people with whom I was queued at 50) in a matter of minutes. To Office Depot's credit, they had plenty of stock for the initial rush, which, according to a manager I overheard, they had "not anticipated." Not anticipated? On the vaunted and much-hyped "Black-Friday?" Idiots.

Luckily for me, only one of the 4 items I bought was an "OMG-we-need-15-of-those-'cause-it's-such-a-good-price" item, so I was able to get what I what I wanted to the mega-checkout line without any hassle.

Still, other than the wait to actually pay for my goods, I got some good deals: a $15.00 piece of crap (but working) DVD player for either the garage or the guest bedroom, a good price on a couple gigs of RAM for the PCs (really improved performance, by the way, on Linux and XP), and a good deal on something for someone who'll probably read this.

Still, though. . . "didn't anticipate" a crowd on Black Friday? I say again: Idiots. At least I didn't go to Best Buy or, God forbid, Wal-Mart.

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