Black Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

We are a few years behind most of society as far as technology goes.  We both have phones that do little more than allow us to text and talk and we are okay with that.  Thankfully, our appliances (knock on wood) have held up well and, with the exception of one, are several years old.  Our TV is older than Jason's teenage son.  So when Best Buy advertised their 42 inch, flatscreen, LCD televisions for $199 we didn't feel any guilt in deciding to splurge a little at a great price.

The plan was that we would cook our Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and periodically, one of us would drive past Best Buy and get in line when one started to form.  On Wednesday afternoon, however, I was at work when one of my coworkers called and said she had just drove by Best Buy and someone was in the process of putting up a tent.  I texted Jason to let him know that the line was starting already - those crazy people!  Now, anyone who knows my Jason knows how stubborn he is.  So it was not really a surprise when a few minutes later, I found out that he was about to become one of those crazy people.  And so began his 32.5-hour outdoor endurance test.

Wednesday evening, all day Thursday, and into wee early Friday morning Jason camped out in front of Best Buy, number four in line.  Anyone who knows my Jason also knows what a big heart he has so on one of my visits to him, I was not surprised to find that he had generously lent out several of his blankets and coats to other people waiting in line.  I'm pretty sure he was a hero to several people and made some new friends.  I was able to join him around 8 pm yesterday to help pass the last few hours.  By the way, I had no intention of going in the store but did I ever get some dirty looks from the people in line.  Finally, around 10:30 pm the Best Buy team came out to pass out the tickets.  (Bless their hearts for coming in to work all night and deal with the madness.)  We still had to wait until midnight for the doors to open but it was a great feeling for Jason to have the tickets in hand, basically guaranteeing that we would get the TV.  When the doors finally opened Jason, unfortunately, found that his ordeal was nowhere near over.  Inside the store, he quickly grabbed a few other items and got into line to redeem his tickets.  A long three hours and 15 minutes later, he checked out.  Yes, the lines were that long.  Yes, people were insane.  Yes, Jason was physically and mentally exhausted and ready to be done.  Yes, he was really happy when he finally got home with the TV!  No, he says he will probably not do this again in the future.  Well...unless they have another deal too good to pass up.

Camp

The view from his spot

 

The line.  It's hard to see here how far it actually goes back but at the end of the night it was past the last building.

Woooo wooooo!

Brrrrrr!