After Thanksgiving

My siblings have all camped out for Star Wars here in Nashville, while I was the lone Turner camper in Maryland...but this morning, we had a mini campout in order to get some stuff at BestBuy. None of us had ever really participated in the "day after Thanksgiving" phenomena. I bought a computer several years ago, but we didn't go especially early (and it turned out to be one of the crappiest computers I've ever seen - make sure you check those "amazing deals" they offer or you too might end up with WindowsME, a Celeron processor, and almost no RAM).

Anyway, so yesterday at my cousin's house, we were all looking through the ads. My younger brother is fixing up his computer and making the left-over pieces into a computer for my sister, so he wanted a new hard drive and a video card, my mom wanted a flash drive (I think they're commonly called "thumb drives" here, but I'm more used to "flash drive"), and I was sorta looking for a DVD player/VCR combo.

Well, there were several places that had hard drives for sale, but we determined that, per gigabyte, BestBuy's was the best deal, they had the video card that Toby wanted, the flash drive that my mom wanted, and the best deal on a DVD recorder/VCR combo. They opened at 6, so we made plans to leave around 5 to get there.

Toby, surprisingly, was the first one up (shows how much he wanted his stuff), and we managed to make it out the door by about 5:15 and to the store by about 5:25. We dropped Toby off at the end of the line (it was to the end of the parking lot by then) and Beth and I went to McDonald's for my traditional campout breakfast. Sadly, TN McDonald'ses apparently don't serve breakfast bagels, so I was at a bit of a loss, but we got breakfast and returned to where Toby was. The employees had passed out maps of the store, so we knew that what Toby wanted and what I wanted would be in different parts of the store and that we'd probably have to go to different registers. Since I was funding the operation, our plan was to split up - I'd go for the DVD/VCR, pay for it, then find Toby and Beth in the computer area where they'd be hanging out, waiting for me.

There was the typical stoppage of the line when we were next to go into the door, but then we were off. I found the DVD/VCR and a few other things and wound my way through the check-out line maze while Toby and Beth waited in the line to get into the computers area (to ensure good customer service). I practically walked up to a register and was out the door maybe ten minutes after entering. I talked to the bouncers as I was leaving explaining the situation in the hopes that I could skip the line on my way back in to find Toby and Beth....to no avail. So, after dropping my stuff off in my car, I got back in the line to get in - which was still about 3/4 of the length it was when we had first gotten there (and maybe 1/3 of the length that it was when the store opened).

After standing in line again, I got back into the store. Toby and Beth were still in line waiting to get into the computers area, so I got in line with them. Turns out, two of the three things they were assigned to get weren't _in_ the computers area, but they ran across them in the snake of the line. After another hour or so, we got in, Toby got his video card and we got into the line for the cashier.

We finally made it to the register and made our purchases and by 7:30 were headed home. On the way home, we stopped at Mrs. Winners for "second breakfast." :) We were completely successful in all of our purchases, and I even sat down and immediately filled out all of the rebate forms and even brought them out to the mailbox.

We now feel more a part of America, having participated fully in the "biggest shopping day of the year." We're also pretty tired.

But, to my audience in Iraq/Jordan....just let me know what TV shows you want me to record and send to you and you've got 'em (as long as you can read a DVD-R and have an address I can send stuff to).

This posting doesn't seem as fun as I'd intended it to be. Maybe you had to be there. Maybe I need to be less sleepy.