black friday madness...

I have never shopped on black Friday. I was sucked in by the toys-r-us ad at my parent's house on Thanksgiving, enticed by a few good deals and the fact that it opened at midnight (b/c 5 am has never been an enticement). I was sure it would be less crowded at midnight than Friday morning. I made the drive to Provo to get there 15 minutes before opening and was shocked to find hoards of people, policemen, no parking spots, guys selling hot chocolate to the crowds. There were literally about 2000 people waiting to get into toys-r-us! I should have just turned around right then, but those doorbusters seemed to be calling my name. I cased out the forever long line and slinked my way near the front (sorry you 8 pm arrivers, I know you hate me). They were letting 50 people in at a time, so I ended up getting in about 12:30. I found the doorbusters and had my little armful, but as I began looking for the other items from my little ad cut-outs, it was too crowded to even find anything. I couldn't get down or across the aisles and the things I did seem to find were sold out. As I was looking, I realized the check out line was wrapped all the way around the store and was sure to take at least another hour and a half. I only had found about half my items, which I then dumped randomly and pushed my way to the EXIT! I came home 2 1/2 hours later at 1:30 am empty handed. The next morning I decided to check out toys-r-us.com to see if I could come up with any of the deals I had missed out on. Low and behold, everything I wanted was right there on the website for the SAME prices as on the ad in front of me. I added them to my cart, made my payment, they get delivered to my door, easy. The only way you'll see me at a black Friday event next year is if I'm the one selling the hot chocolate...