Dark Friday 2006

This is an archival story from one of my older blogs. It details my quest for a Nintendo Wii on Dark Friday 2006 (the year/week of the launch of the Wii). Come take a look!

@ Toys-R-US
People on the line were grabbing multiple wagons and lining them up next to each other so that they could maximize the amount they could purchase. The problem with this was that once the store opened the doors and the isles were not wide enough to accomodate the width. It was funny because we seriously were pushing stuff out of the way to get to where we wanted to be.There were these two little kids (up with their parents at 4:20am) running around about 3 people ahead of us on line. This was funny because Hollywood D got really annoyed at them, and I was sure he was about to start yelling.

A Ford Bronco drove by about 20 minutes before the store opened, and the driver asked if anyone was waiting for Wii or PS3; I guess he was scalping them. I’m not sure what he was charging, but I’m sure it was way more than MSRP.

About 1 minute before the store opened, the woman in front of us on line started talking to us about what she was going in there for. This sucked because she had already told the people in front of her, and we had overheard it, and, frankly, it was boring. I told Hollywood D that I didn’t care where we were in the conversation once the doors opened.In the same conversation, the woman asked what we were in line for, I told her, “I’m just here for some action figures,” just to avoid Wii competition.

When we got inside, We B-lined to the back of the store where video games were sold. There was a wall filled with Wii Boxes. We each knocked off one box from the display and simultaneously discovered they were empty. There were no Wii’s in stock, so we had to come up with another plan. So we figured we’d drive across the parking lot to EB Games.

@ EB Games
When we pulled up to the store, there was actually nobody there. As we walked up to the door, someone walked over from a nearby store and another person walked up from their car ahead of us. For some reason, the first guy thought the second guy was opening the store. It was funny how disappointed that kid got.

Actually, that kid’s story in generally was really funny. He was a 19 year old guy who you can tell really wanted a Wii. At first he got really pissed that the EB Games worker told him the store opened at 5am, but once I reminded him that he was first in line once they did open, he lit up. For the two hours that we were waiting, I realized that this kid needed a Wii way more than I did, so I kept saying, “I don’t even care if I get one or not; if this kid doesn’t get one, my Christmas will not be the same.”

The second guy was another character. He kept telling us that he made B’s in school just so his mom could lend him $50 toward the purchase of Wii. He had a very strong southern accent, and we later learned that he was home from college in South Carolina visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday. We told my mom that he came all the way from SC for a Wii; she kept going, “ohh my God; people are crazy.”

The women behind us kept asking whether they should buy their kids a Wii or an Xbox 360. They didn’t seem to like the idea that the Wii was probably better for a little kid.

At about 5:55am, the store manager opened the store. The second guy in line was making conversation and said, “you look tired” and the clerk responded, “No, I’ve been up since 4am.” Once the guy went inside, I responded, “What, you can’t be up since 4am and tired at the same time?” That seemed to go over well.

There was a woman about 10 people behind us on the line that kept coming to the front to look in the window. We were all certain that she was gonna try to cut the line. I think the southern kid in front of us kept saying that he was gonna uppercut her or something if she tried it.

Two minutes before the store opened, a guy from the end of the line walked over to us and made small talk about the Wii; it was obvious that he was gonna try to cut the line once the store opened, and I’m sure southern justice had an uppercut waiting for him.

There were two clerks ringing up people when the doors opened. For some ridiculous reason, the southern kid kept stalling. It was bad because one guy run up the kid in the front, Hollywood D, and Me before the southern kid even got his change. After Hollywood D paid, he took my car keys and went straight to the car. Once I paid, an Asian guy with tall hair followed me out of the store and out of the parking lot. I thought he was following me for sure once he took the exact route I did to get back home. Hollywood D and I thought of ideas to lose him, but, it turns out, we didn’t need to since he turned somewhere else.

That’s most of what happened on our first ever Dark Friday experience. I’m pretty sure that barring any future system releases, I will not be shopping on Dark Friday again for a long time.