Black Friday?

Yesterday we looked through the humongous Thursday paper (just a reminder that we still have a paper route) to see what kind of deals we could find for Black Friday.  Deanna put together a plan and toward the evening, she invited me to come along and check out the lines.  I grabbed my coat and said "Sure" and jumped in the car. It was about 8:30pm. We drove out to BestBuy and was amazed at how many crazy people were standing out in the cold to wait for the doors to open at midnight to go in and get some great buys on electronics.  As we passed by we decided that we probably wouldn't get any good deals in there since there was already a huge line around the side of the building.  We then drove by Target and looked at that line. Again, a few loons standing out in the cold.  Deanna then suggested we drive by Walmart to check it out.  Happily, I drove the car around the corner and headed to Walmart.  We arrived and didn't see a line at all, however, the parking lot was almost completely full.  If you know Walmart parking lots at all, you will know that there is a huge gigantic selection of parking stalls to choose from on a regular shopping day.  So, seeing this outrageous amount of cars parked should have given me a clue that the relatively calm exterior was no indicator of what might be happening inside.  We parked out in the "back 40" and walked around a mile and a half to get to the front doors (or so it seemed).  We entered and that is when the mayhem began.  We were given a map with dots and locations.  The dots had numbers which indicated which sales items would be sold at which locations and at what times.  I happily looked around and was glad that I wasn't too involved at that point.  I thought we were just going to walk around and look at the crazy people and head home.  Well, Deanna had other plans.  There were a couple of great deals that would be occurring in that store that night and she wanted to take advantage of them while we were still there.  So, we walked around and found the enterances to the maze of  isles that would be selling these particular items.  We entered one particular set of isles that had been roped off and the Walmart attendant notified us that we were about the 30th in line and that we were guaranteed one of these items.  We entered the maze and navigated ourselves to the back of the line.  "What time does this item actually go on sale?" I wondered to my self. So, I leaned over to Deanna and asked, "What time does this item go on sale?" hoping and praying that she said 10:00pm.  She fumbled through the papers and maps and said, "12:00 midnight".  Without being too frantic, I looked at my watch.  8:45pm.  My heart sank, my countenance shuttered and my back began to hurt.  I then realize that I was there for the long haul and not just a visit and that I had become one of those "crazy" shoppers I was gawking at just seconds earlier.  I was going to be sitting on this hard tiled floor until midnight and probably much later.  Thank heavens for Angry Birds!

Below is one of my "breaks" from sitting in line on the Walmart floor.  If you can spot Deanna in these shots, you win a free trip to Walmart where you can sit on the floor for over 3 hours.