Friday, November 24, 2006

Black Friday

I was never much of a shopper. My favorite stores are bookstores, hardware stores and stationery stores, in that order.

I'm not a sale-chaser or coupon clipper. And I'm certainly not one to get up and line up in front of a store in the predawn hours, waiting for the store to open, because of some spectacular sale. I'll do it for my kids — to get that Wii, for instance. But to score some hot deal? Nah.

One of my relatives told me yesterday that she and her sister were planning to be at some store (I forget which) this morning at 5 a.m. She loves Black Friday. Not so much for the sales, but for, as she put it, "the thrill of the shop." I can't relate. I dread shopping, unless it involves browsing around a bookstore, a hardware store or a stationery store.

This morning, I glanced at some newspaper inserts as I sipped my first cup of coffee. I noticed Best Buy has a big sale going on. A 32-inch LCD HDTV for $479. Hmm. We're in the market for a TV, so I decided to stop at Best Buy on my way to the gym. It was a casual, spur-of-the-moment decision. At 5 a.m., how many people would be at Best Buy in Riverhead? I'd breeze in and out and go work out.

I am so naive. You'd think after my Wii experience last weekend I'd know better.

At 5:30, a half hour after Best Buy opened, there was a line of people, 3 and 4 abreast, waiting to get IN to the store! The parking lot was jammed. The line went all the way around the corner of the building, past where the people had been camping out in the hopes of scoring a PlayStation 3 or a Wii last week! And it was still dark out! Amazing!

I went directly to the gym. As I pulled into the parking lot, I was shocked to see a line of people waiting for Staples to open at 6! Holy cow!

I went into the gym, feeling like an alien creature. (And grateful for it.) I climbed aboard the Cross-Ramp and ran my butt off for 30 minutes. On the way home, dawn had broken. Every parking lot on Route 58 was jam-packed. Target. Toys R Us. Filled to the brim. Amazing! I guess there are a lot of folks around who love the "thrill of the shop."

What time does Borders open today?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha - funny! Borders opened at 10AM today. Probably the only store that opened at its regular time.
I saw channel 12 news...apropos your post..people were storming the stores at 9PM Thanksgiving night! Now they (who are they?) are taking away from Thanksgiving. Just when you should be eating your second piece of pie, folks feel compelled to run to to the stores...Nah!- Not for me.
I love shopping- on my timetable. Today after my company left,I took a walk on the beach breathing in the crisp air. I stayed right here in Jamesport and enjoyed the quiet..

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Borders-I was pretty psyched to hear about the two-story Barnes and Noble going in by Smith Haven. I've been wondering for a couple of months what was going in there.

My brother was one of the people at Tanger at midnight. He said there were thousands of people and I also heard that they were only letting in 10 at a time for 10 minutes for some stores. It's ironic...I wouldn't go there at midnight except to get stuff for the baby, but I won't go there at midnight because of the baby. And I also hate crowds of people.