Black Friday

[compubarn Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close compubarn]

Now that I got some sleep I'd like to hear some Black Friday stories. I'll start first.
This year I was waiting in front of Best Buy since 7:30pm braving the New England cold in hopes of getting a laptop for my wife. The first guy in the line got there at 1:30pm. By the time I got there there were about 20 people in the line so it looked like I had very good chances. Little that I knew the third guy in the line had a list of 40 something people (supposedly all his family) that were "waiting" with him. You can only imagine how upset people got when all of his family started pulling into the parking lot in minivans few minutes before 3am, right before Best Buy started giving out tickets. If it wasn't for 4 cops and a K-9 a fight would definitely be a fight. At that point I lost all hope of getting the laptop. As you can imagine these people snatched up all of the best laptop deals. Luckily, by some miracle I got the last HP laptop for $450, unfortunately my friend who was with me all night wasn't so lucky.

So, let's hear your Black Friday horror stories.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Did 100% of my shopping online so I do not have any stories. You could have saved some heart ache if you would have looked here in the computer forums. There are a few great deals on Dell and HP.

[funtime2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close funtime2]

I don't have a shopping horror story, because I refused to wait in the lines the way other people were waiting..... We left home at 4am and when we arrived there was a line wrapped around both Best Buy and Circuit City so my DH and I went to McD's and got a biscuit. Since we are military we went on base where there is no shoving and etc. or you would be escorted out of the building. We got the Garmin nuvi 200 for $167 which we thought was a good deal - remember no tax and no waiting in the cold for endless hours. My husband found a Tommy Bahama shirt that had been $110 that we bought for $27 along with a few other things. About 8am we went back to various store (Circuit City, Staples, Best Buy) and was able to find the things we would have waited in line to buy. Which left us with a good feeling. The longest amount of time we had to wait was one hour to eat at Cracker Barrel and then 4 hours later DH got sick and it all came back. He was fine after getting it out of his system. I called to let them know what had happen and they took a report for their records. If there was any horror in our Black Friday it was when DH got sick, but the good thing is it did not last long and could have been worse.

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

Around here the best deals were refurbished brand-name laptops at PATHMARK (a grocery store) for $299! They were going to start selling them at 7 AM. They also had good deals on a big TV. The laptop was the only thing that tempted me, but sleeping was more tempting! I don't like Best Buy under normal circumstances...I can just imagine what it's like when they have good deals on something.

[1950bing Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 1950bing]

I shop the same way that Big Frank shops. Click and it's done! Several places are offering free shipping at least for right now. I just can't see all the interest in bf. Horror doesn't seem like a word that would be spoken with Christmas.

[jericap Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close jericap]

I haven't done the 4am shopping thing in a long time...but I decided last minute to do it. I went to one store..stood in a slow moving line about 15 deep, bought 5 items... I couldn't remember which door I came in, so I went out and in 4 of them before I found the right exit. I then went home and did the rest of my shopping online. I am now all done!!!
I now remember why I haven't done the 4am thing in years.

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

My oldest woke me up at 5AM and wanted to go so off we went... The bad thing was my wife already pretty much did all of our gift shopping but we went out just the same.

We hit K-mart, Sears, Staples, and Radio Shack before 7AM and we were selective to blow a lot of money on things that were only more then 50% or more off.

So, my wife got me a new cordless drill for X-mas that I bought at K-mart, we got a couple new hard drives, memory cards for cameras, new bedding, and a lot of other stuff.

We went to breakfast and returned home to show off the loot... My wife wan'st me to sell half of it on ebay now as a lot of it seems to be stuff we didn't need but at 60%-off, we just had to buy it.



It was a great morning and my oldest is 10 and she enjoyed the hunt for the best steals as much as I did or more.

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

Do the eBay thing, Ken. He who shops and runs away...lives to shop another day.

One year I went online at about 12:05 to buy my middle DD a Gameboy. Amazon had a gold one for the usual price. I ordered it, it came, I put it away to save for the holidays, and I remember being disappointed b/c the "gold" was really more like vaguely goldish silver. Not shiny pretty gold color at all.

Well, that gold Gameboy was a very hot item on eBay that year, but I didn't sell it. I've been kicking myself over that one ever since!

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

There was nothing I needed badly enough to stand in line in the cold for this year. Actually I can't remember if there ever was a year when there was.

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

The only store that I went to on Friday was Pearl Paint, for art supplies. They were having some good sales, but no one seemed to care. The place was empty. I walked in around 10, immediately got a salesperson to help me, and checked out with only one person in front of me on line.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Did my shopping on-line in the comfort of my own home.