Thursday, December 1, 2011

Black Friday 2011: The Quest for the Legend of Zelda

Sarah loves Black Friday. She has fond memories of standing outside a Wal-Mart at ungodly hours in the morning freezing her butt off with her dad and uncle. So when we can, we do Wal-Mart's Black Friday. This year, we mainly had one goal: buy the special edition Skyward Sword. It comes with a Wii Motion Plus Remote and the 25th anniversary edition music CD. All for a reasonable $60. This was especially important since we just had a Wii Remote die on us.

The Black Friday sale started at 10:00 pm Thursday, which really makes it a Black Thursday Night sale, but whatever. We arrived at 8:30 and tried to immediately determine where exactly in the covered videogame racks the game would be. Thanks to some helpful employees I found out exactly where the game would be and began the task of situating myself in the optimal position to grab the game immediately. 

The crowd was still light at this point, but there were a couple people in a single row between me and the game. When the woman in front of me turned to talk to her daughter, I used the opportunity to insinuate myself closer to the rack, placing my leg in a more forward position. Over time, she moved to the left enough that I was able to place myself immediate against the racks. Once there I laid my hand on the tarp as if to say, "This is my spot, and nobody is going to take it from me. No crowd shall create a distance between me and my prize." 

There was still a good hour between that moment and when the clock would strike frenzy. I passed the time by texting Sarah regarding our situation. She initially wanted to get some towels, but they were by the ridiculously cheap sheets and there was no way she could penetrate that crowd so she joined me in the games and DVD section.

Time passed and eventually 10:00 came. The tarps were swiftly removed and my quarry was spotted. I was the second person to grab one of their limited supply. My task was now to escape. The Skyward Sword copies were next to the display that featured games such as Battlefield 3, Madden, and Modern Warfare 3, so the crowd was generally pressing towards me. Escape was a hard fought battle. I pressed against the crowd, away from the shooters and football games towards the aisle. In the process I was squeezed up against all sorts of people. I'm sorry to any ladies which had my groin forced against them. I meant nothing by it, I swear.

In time, with much explaining that I was done and just wanted to escape, I was let out. I passed by a rack of Wii games which had several titles strewn across its top. I got out and called Sarah since I couldn't see her. She had apparently been the one who threw those Wii games on top of the rack to aid the poor mothers forced into this bedlam. She had gone by the DVD section and picked up several seasons of The Big Bang Theory and other shows and we made our way to the checkout. Upon getting there we realized she accidentally got two copies of season 1 and no copy of season 2. She went back to correct the error. 

We paid and were out of the store at 10:13 pm. We essentially kick ass. No wounds suffered. No trampling. No pepper spray burns. It was a pretty good Black Friday experience.