It's been awhile since I've been up all up hours of the night. Now I know why. It is painful and it hurts. My BFF Heather and I feed on each other's energy and the idea to go to Toys R Us when they opened at 12:00 midnight last night didn't seem like it was a good idea until I spoke to her. All of sudden, we decided we HAD to be there. I am normally asleep by 10:30pm and wasn't sure how we'd stay awake to when the store opened. Heather came up with the brilliant idea to see a movie beforehand. The plan was to go see "The Blind Side" at 7:50pm and afterward hang out in the parking lot of Toys R Us until they opened. When we arrived at 10:20pm, the line had already started forming and was easily 60 people deep. How could I wait in the warm, dry car watching the line get longer and longer? No way! So I took my place in line and waited for more than 1.5 hours in the cold and rain for the doors to open.
The line got longer and longer. We were at the Fair Lakes, VA location and it stretched all the way to BJ's. CRAZY!! I asked a police officer what he estimated the crowd to be and he said easily 1,200 people. All standing in the cold and rain. Wow! At about 11:55pm, they handed out the tickets for the first 100 people to get this season's hottest gift - the Zhu Zhu pet hamster. Heather and I made the cut. Who knew this was something we even wanted?
The police did a great job of keeping the crowd under control and when it was time to go inside the store, they opened the doorway just enough for one person to enter at a time. Meanwhile, the police held back the big groups of people who all of a sudden appeared from the parking lot and was prepared to cross the street and enter when the crowd started moving.
Once inside it was the absolute craziest environment I've ever seen. These people were professionals. They knew what they were doing and had apparently done this before. Shopping carts were filled up to the top in a matter of seconds. Stacks of toys on display in the store disappeared with the blink of an eye. It was insane! People had a strategy on what they wanted to buy and scoped the store out the day before. I admittedly, didn't bring my A game and was clueless. In my sleep-deprived state, I thought I would be able to wander around and take in the sights and smells of the store with all their glorious toys at my leisure. Heather and I even said we'd shop until 1:00am and then plan to be home by 2. Ha!!
The one big item Heather really wanted was the princess vanity. It was originally $69 and would be on sale for $25. Wow! What an amazing deal! I knew that eventually Samantha would be old enough to enjoy something like this and told Heather to pick me one up if we got separated. She also had said she would get one for another one of our friends. I was going to hit the pick up of the hamsters (we told to get them immediately upon entering the store) and Heather was making a beeline for the vanities. We are not entirely certain what happened, but all we know is that there were exactly 8 vanities to be had at the store and all 8 were gone by the time we realized what end was up. I heard rumors that the vanities had been moved to the front of the store and the hamster crowd was blocking the view of them. I never did see any of the vanities, not even in people's carts.
I do believe the amount of people in Toys R Us at 12:10am was a fire hazard. You couldn't move. There were people everywhere. It was so congested that if someone fell over, we'd all go like dominoes. I inched my way through the GeoTrax section and Heather was nice enough to point out an item or two she thought Sam would like. They ran out of carts and was making big apologies to people over the store's intercom.
Finally by 12:15am, we had it. There was no more fight in us and it was time to call it a day. We started hearing announcements about where the end of the line was and realized it would've been easier to go in the other direction to get to the end. It took us 10 minutes to make our way to the end. The end of the line by the time we got to it (at 12:25am) was located back in the toy baby area -- near bikes. Seriously. I kid you not, the line weaved in and out of most aisles and bordered the entire left half of Toys R Us. Heather and I soon realized we weren't going anywhere fast and decided to take turns wandering the aisles (cartless) and see if there was anything else we wanted to get. When it was my turn to go, I was in awe that every single person in the store was now standing in line waiting to check out. It was seriously out of control. Some of our best finds came from pilfering people's carts who dropped out of the line and gave up.
I had no idea if what was in my cart was on sale. Some of the stuff apparently didn't go on sale until 5:00am. People were standing in line talking about the great deals they were getting. I never felt more out of it not knowing exactly what was going on in my cart. It took us until 3:00am to reach the registers. I lucked out big-time and got a cashier (named JJ), who took the time to tell me the price of each thing in my cart and let me know if it was on sale or not. It was then that I was starting to come back to my senses and told him to put stuff back that wasn't on sale. He added my rejects to the growing pile behind him and said he didn't mind in the least because he wasn't the one who was going to reshelve these items. When we came to the items that would be marked down at 5:00am, he graciously gave me on-the-spot price adjustments and rung me up at the sale price.
I walked out of Toys R Us feeling beaten-up. My eyes hurt from still being open and my body was starting to go through dehydration from lack of water. It was not pretty. I have no idea what I ended up going home with (and won't until Ian goes to sleep tonight) nor do I have any idea if this was even worth my time to do this in the first place.
I know I saved a total of $51. I know I received an electronic hamster for $9.99 that the same exact thing is being sold on Amazon for $46. And apparently no one can find one to buy. I also know I received the 64 pack of crayola crayons for free with my purchase. And I know I saw an amazing movie that I would've probably had to wait until it came out on Netflix to see.
Will I do this again next year? Not if my life depended on it. Heather and I excel at getting to stores at 5:00am when they open. Not at midnight the night before. They call it Black Friday for a reason. Lining up in the outside, cold and rainy night for 1 hour, 40 minutes before they open the doors on Thanksgiving was not as fun as it sounds.
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