We had a bite of pie in one hand. The Black Friday Christmas ads in the other. We were sitting at a table with a Christmas flannel tablecloth inside a wood cabin tucked away in the pines in Payson, Arizona. It was Thanksgiving and Erica and her mom had a tradition of going out shopping on Black Friday every year. And there it was. On the front page of the Walmart Black Friday ad the deal of the year was shining! An Xbox 360 WITH guitar hero for $199!! And it was accompanied by a few important words in very fine print: LIMITED QUANTITY.
We started planning. In case of a surprise snow blizzard, we mapped out which roads we would take to get out of the woods and up into the town and to Walmart by 2:45 am. After all, Erica had left Jon alone at college for the final semester of his senior year, so buying him a gift that would keep him company until he graduated was the least she could do!!
Walmart opened for Black Friday deals at 5 am. Erica and her mom pulled into the parking lot at 2:45 am so if you do the math, they were there just in time to wait in line for two hours for the deal Erica had had her eyes on. Inside of the store was stack after stack of all the deals all wrapped up and hidden in cardboard boxes. Doing their best to think logically at 2:45 in the morning, Erica and Tina made their way back to the electronic section of the store and found a very obvious display that had to be the Xbox gift. They peeked underneath the wrapping just to make sure. They were right.
So there they stood.
The VERY first ones there.
For two hours.
An hour went by and the only exciting activity was the two of them laughing at each other for having made such a big deal of beating everyone to the deal when they were in such a small town! They stood there dreaming of the warm flannel sheets that they could still be sleeping in. They could smell the fresh pot of coffee that they could have enjoyed if they would have stayed home and opted for a slow, relaxing morning.
WAKE UP!!
It was 4:30 and up walked the first person they’d seen in over an hour who wasn’t wearing a blue vest with a name tag and a yellow smiley face. Erica stood with eyes peeled open and fists formed just in case. Just kidding guys, don’t worry!!!
The minutes passed and Erica and Tina found themselves just centimeters away from the line they were not allowed to cross! As more people joined they both casually brought up how they had been there for almost two hours at that point and they weren’t leaving without one! MOST of the other shoppers agreed that one of those hidden xboxes had their name on it. And the ones who didn’t…Erica and Tina had their eyes on them!
The place was alive. Christmas music was finally playing. And all the shoppers were lining up at their sought after sales. The employee came with a box cutter. Waiting, as the clock ticked, to cut the straps off and make the xboxes accessible.
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
The xboxes were there and Erica didn’t skip a beat as she tightly grabbed ahold of Jon’s Christmas gift. That’s when she felt it. The grown man with hands coming in over her head and landing them onto the Xbox she waiting HOURS FOR!! In what felt like slow motion, she turned her head, looked him in the eyes, and with all her body she jerked that box right out of his hands!
BAM! Ain’t no one stealing that Xbox from her!
“Start the car! Start the car!” (Anyone else love that IKEA commercial!?) Tina escorted her to the check out line and they high-fived each other as they walked out of the store, feeling like the rockstars that Jon would spend his last semester of college getting to pretend that he was!
It was all fun though! No one was hurt, and Jon had something to occupy his time apart from Erica! (Although, if you ask him…no xbox comes close to time with her!) Enjoy the shopping deals, friends! And keep your hands off other people’s boxes!!
Comments +