I Survived Black Friday!

I love to shop. I actually used to call myself a 'Shop-a-holic.' However, I am now in recovery and don't nearly shop as often (not perhaps by choice, but that is besides the point). I love a good deal. Clearance, Sale, Discount and Buy one get one FREE are my favorite words to see while shopping.

Black Friday hasn't ever been a favorite day to shop of mine though. In reality, I don't anticipate ever going out amongst those crazy holiday shoppers. It is the one day out of the year where people are extremely rude and can really get away with it without getting punched in the face. Well, some do. Politeness goes completely out the window this day of the year. I just don't get it. Maybe it is the early wake-up calls, no coffee, lack of sleep, claustrophobia... something.

Today though, I got up at 4:30 AM EST (which is more like 3:30 AM to me). I went to Wal-Mart with my Dad to try and get a 10 Mega Pixel digital camera for only $69 and a 8GB USB Drive for $17. It opened at 5AM, so it was a good plan... right? WRONG! The parking lot was full. Bad sign #1. So, my Dad dropped me off at the entrance so I could try to get to the Electronics section. The whole store was cramped with people. The $2 and $10 DVD section was like a shark feeding frenzy. Bad sign #2. Then, I saw a long line that headed way past the corner end of the store and wound out by the food. Bad sign #3. As I made my way through the sea of shoppers and abusive shopping carts I asked someone in this stand-still line what it was for. She said "cameras and digital frames." Great just f'ing great. I knew the camera I wanted only had 24 in stock there (I called the night before and asked). There were well over 100 people in that line. So, I went to find the USB drive. Not an easy task there either. Eventually I got in a line with my Dad for what? I wasn't sure but it said electronics and wasn't for cameras. It ended up being for the USB drive and other random stuff they had hidden behind the counter. After about 45 minutes in a line that should have only taken 15 minutes, I bought the stupid 8 GB USB drive for $17. Yay?

Wal-Mart was hell. I'm semi-claustrophobic as it is, and with that amount of people and body heat in the store - it was terrible. Rude people shouting at others and store clerks gave me a headache. Shopping carts were being used like bumper carts all over the store, and after getting tired of having them rammed at me, I shoved them back at the rammers. Take that bitches! Every now and then there were a few fellow nice shoppers, but it was very rare.

All that and I didn't even get to see a real fight break out. Maybe if I had been there earlier to see people fight over the $199 XBOX360 Guitar Hero bundle... Ah, oh well.

After that nonsense we went to Goody's. What a relief that store was! Sure, there were shoppers in there but not a swarm of angry bees with shopping carts ready to ram you. I picked out some clothes and got rather good deals on a few items. I'm rather happy about that at least. I got 3 organic cotton long sleeved shirts, a purple sweater shirt that is dressy enough to wear for Christmas, a black long sleeved sweater that looks great on me and a dressy shirt for New Year's Eve. Not too bad huh?

All in all, the hype of Black Friday is just that: hype. Not worth it really in my opinion. I wouldn't do it again - though, I probably will. Next time though if I wake my @$$ up that early I'm just going to try to buy the stuff online.

Did any of you go shopping today on Black Hell Friday? Did you have to work today in retail? Any horror stories from years past? Share!