My Black Friday

Black Friday is the first day of shopping for the Christmas Holiday season or the day after Thanksgiving. The color Black means retailers make a profit; in other words, retailers are in the black, they are making money whereas retailers in the red means retailers are losing money.

My Black Friday store was Best Buy. The store priced a 19 inch Samsung flat panel widescreen monitor for $129.99. The regular price was $249.99. All of the other retailers had great deals. The Best Buy monitor caught my attention and I needed a monitor for dual monitors when I use my laptop O__^ The store opened at 5:00 A.M.

I woke up at 2:30 A.M., went to 7-11 at 2:50 A.M. to purchase a Twinkie, Baby Ruth, and Orange Juice for breakfast, and arrived at Best Buy at 3:15 A.M. When I arrived, there were people with tents and sleeping bags. I guess a few families Thanksgiving tradition was participating in Black Friday. The weather conditions were very cold with the temperature in the low 40s.

When I lined up, the line started to move forward. WTF @__@ Somebody told me the Best Buy workers arrived to their shifts and people tried to enter and move forward to get a voucher. Minutes later, Best Buy employees told everyone must be in single file line to issue vouchers. Vouchers were available for the door buster items. No voucher, no door buster item. I saw Milpitas police stopped a car for a traffic violation. I think Milpitas police needed to reevaluate their priorities such as the more important Best Buy line. Throughout the early part of the line, only one Milpitas police officer provided security.

At 4:00 A.M., Best Buy workers issued vouchers. The front of the line was chaos. People who received no voucher were mad. At least one person got arrested. A Milpitas police van drove to the front of the line. Five minutes later, the van drove off. I was in the middle of the line and the front line was out of my sight. Other people in line were in groups and sent one person to check out the front line. They said the front was chaotic :X

Around 4:30 A.M., only three door buster vouchers reached my line. No chance for the $400.00 laptop, LOL. Someone asked what line I was in. I told him, “Best Buy. Sorry. End of the line over there.” I wonder if he wanted to go to Borders because I was at the front of Borders *__* Or maybe Wal-Mart which was on the other side of the park. And I saw a mother with her baby. WTF, man. The group behind me were making jokes such as the baby couldn’t cry because the mouth was frozen shut and saying that was child endangerment.

5:00 A.M. came and the line moved in a single file. Three Milpitas police officers were watching the front doors. I entered the store at 5:20 A.M. Best Buy let people in the store in groups. I rushed to the monitor section and all of the monitors on sale were gone. I walked forward to the PC section and the monitors shelves were gone. I saw one customer climbed up the shelves to a stack of Samsung monitors. The Best Buy worker said those Samsung monitors were a different model. Another customer looked at the ad said otherwise. The Best Buy worker looked a second time and confirmed the Samsung monitors were the ones on sale. The worker made everyone line up single file to wait for the ladder. There was pushing and shoving. The customer in front of me brought his wife and two kids. The kids were being squished. I told everyone to stop the pushing and shoving. What did the father do? He focused on the monitors. *Shakes head in disappointment*

The ladder arrived. There were 12 Samsung monitors. The customer in front of me wanted four because he brought his wife and two kids. The Best Buy worker said no. The father wanted to sell the monitors for a profit someplace else $-\ I got the fifth monitor and went straight to the cashier. At 5:40 A.M., I drove back home lucky I got a monitor. I was lucky because some customers took the wrong monitor they thought were the ones on sale, and it explains why the monitor shelves were empty.

Somebody told me the reason for the voucher system is because one time Wal-Mart had $20.00 DVD players and one person was trampled close to death. The Best Buy line control was great compared to me at Fry’s in Black Friday’05; on the other hand, I overheard two people say last year was more organized.

Next year, I feel the major retailers must have more Black Friday items on the website. Less crowds at the stores and much easier to shop. Yeah, right :-| To the people shopping on Black Friday, respect the workers. The workers are paid crap, yet they come to work. I just hope the stores give them something as appreciation and as a thank you. Next year I shop on-line and pay the shipping and handling. If the item I want is available in store only, I find a substitute even if the price is a little higher. It wasn’t worth it.