Secrets of the City

If you want a good shopping experience, you buy a car from Denny Hecker. Nobody walks. Good people helping good people. Enough said.

It is stories like those that make me bound and determined to never leave the house on Black Friday…. I do have a story however.

A few years back, I was home visiting friends and family over the Thanksgiving Holiday. It was about 2pm on Black Friday when a friend said to me, “I have a project that I would like your help with.”

“Okay,” I replied. “We can start on it tomorrow because we do not want to go shopping on a day like today.”

“That is silly,” he replied. “What else are we going to do?”

So, we dared to test the waters of the Home Depot on Black Friday. The problem, of course, is that Home Depot and Best Buy in this particular case share a parking lot. Thus, we were prepared for the worst.

When we got there, we wondered if the place was closed. It was like a zombie apocalypse. The parking lot — even that closest to Best Buy — was practically empty. We drove up to the door to check to see if the store was open, and it was. Thus, we parked and entered the store. I now know what the zombie apocalypse will be like. There were probably 10 people total in the store and 8 of them were employees. We got our stuff looking over our shoulders to make sure a horde of shuffling zombies weren’t following us. It was truly creepy!

Thanks, DouglasG. Creepy, indeed.

And, chumley, keep up the spamming, and I’m nixing you. Got it?
Or perhaps you’ll be the next MNSpeak post yourself. Hmmm.

I can only recall one year when I ever attempted to participate in Black Friday … and it wasn’t all that horrible of an experience. Of course, it was some place like Kohl’s; not Best Buy or Walmart. I’m more of an evening shopper anyway. I see no reason to interrupt my beauty sleep in the morning in order to be the first in line to find out a store just ran out of the loss-leader they’d advertised.

NO spam here. Spam is when you drop advertisements or whatnot to Canadian pharmacy or online poker. I’m discussing Denny Hecker, and I bet there’s a lot of people out there who bought cars from the Denster on Black Friday and had totally awesome experiences.

@chumley: Funny that. Denny Hecker is out of business. Why are you advertising for him when he can’t sell anyone anything?

Hello everyone,

I have been visiting this site off and on for a while now and thought that I would join and see if I can make some new friends and possibly provide some help.
I am willing to help on most anything; I have a lot of experience in project management on everything from mechanical engineering to website building. Currently working on a couple of websites, One for helping people that live in small cities meet other people from small cities and another for helping people find locations for relaxing and having a good time.
Looking forward to meeting some new friends.
PartySearch

Shopped yesterday. Want to mall. Parked car. Bought things. Left. That’s all there is to it, friends. Mighta had to wait in line a little longer and saw some more traffic. But it was pretty painless.

I think most of the stories are embellished by TV reporters who are mad that they have to work over a holiday weekend.

Braved MOA today. Parked at Ft. Snelling and took the 10:45 a.m. train in. MOA wasn’t as crowded as I thought it would be, and we were able to complete our round of shopping within the 2-1/2 hour transfer time so paid only $1.75 round-trip for the LRT.

TJ Max had some great deals! Also don’t walk–run to see Blind sided:)! Made me think about how much
I have to start giving back MORE:)!
BTW the deals at Wal Mart this year…Rockin so I hope my friends like Wal Mart’s surplus!

Went to the last day of the Sorella Wine Sale today and wish I’d gotten there earlier. Lots of great buys, and 15% off everything else. Two cases ought to almost replenish what I drank on Thanksgiving Day.

Three years ago. My groin hurts just thinking about it. I’m taking the rest from my blog.
I usually make it a rule: The day after Thanksgiving, I board up the house and hide. Unfortunately, my wife forgot to pack my son’s saline spray which he needs for his nebulizing (He has lung issues right now). This meant that ole Leab had to go to Target (where his prescription is) to get it.
You have to understand: the town my wife’s parents live in is a Wal-Mart town. There is a Target, but it’s behind the Home Depot and only the “fancy rich-folk” go there. Much like King of the Hill, there are people who stand outside the Target talking about the death of the Mom and Pop Shops.
“Yep…place like this takes away our jobs….I’m out of chips…be right back.”
Because I had to go out anyway, my wife’s mother asked me for a favor:
“Could you please stop at Big Lot’s and look for this camera? It’s for your father-in-law’s mother.”
Now I get along pretty well with my mother-in-law, and I like my father-in-law’s mother as she understands the feelings I have about Missouri, so I said yes…like an idiot.
8 AM on Friday. The store looks empty as I park.
Once I walk in, however, it’s a different story. There are people literally crawling up the walls (on the shelves, of course) to grab the sale items. I don’t see the camera, so I ask the store clerk by the door.
“Oh my…we sold out of those by 6:15. You should have been here like everyone else. The REAL shoppers were here then.”
“Oh well,” I replied. “Doesn’t hurt to try.”
“You snooze you lose,” the clerk says. “You should have been here at 5 like everyone else.”
“I really couldn’t care. I just thought I would ask,” I say, but the clerk has already moved on to someone else.
As I start to move around to leave the store, I see a DVD setup that’s cheap. It’s a Progressive Scan player marked down to $30. I know my brother-in-law wants one, so I pick it up to look at it.
After a few seconds, I hear a whoosh, and then my head starts to hurt. WHAM! Then again, WHAM!
“I saw it first, you fucker!” I hear screamed.
WHAM!
“What the hell?!” I scream back.
I turn and see a woman a half a foot shorter than me sizing me up with her purse for another hit. My hands shoot out to block her, but she’s too quick, and she hits me in my groin. I’m not kidding.
“What…the…FUCK?!” I breathe out.
“I SAW IT FIRST! You took it out of my hands! It’s mine!” She screams. She points to the DVD player I am clutching because my body is seizing while trying to get through the pain.
She rips the player from my hands and starts toward the checkout.
Here’s the amazing part: NO ONE DOES ANYTHING!
The manager comes over and helps me up.
“Are you all right?” He asks me.
“Yeah,” I say as the wave of nausea passes, “But why didn’t you or anyone else help me?”
“Look,” he starts, “It’s our biggest shopping day. You aren’t bleeding either. Were you planning on buying the player?”
“No, but…”
“No. You weren’t. Look, I saw you pull up in the car from…what is that…Minnesota? You’re not from here. If I file a complaint, if I call the cops…you’ll probably lose. You aren’t from here…and she is. She’s a well-known resident and well liked. Her husband’s an ex-Fire Marshall. Just….Just let it go.”
That’s life on Black Friday.
But wait…it gets worse.
With my dignity hovering around my stomach, I hobbled back to my car and drove to Target.
It’s here that I see humanity at its worse. People were pushing around packed carts buying stuff they would never need or use. Who buys fourteen bottles of Shampoo? Just because they’re on sale? Sigh.
The creme de la creme, however, is when the partrons discovered the one unbought Playstation 3 (shows you how backwoods or off the beaten path this place is). Two customers saw it and each grabbed a worker to try and get it. They arrived at the same time. It started as a shouting match.
“I was here first.”
“NO, I was!”
Then it degenerated.
“If you think you’re getting the machine, I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Is that a threat? I’m calling the cops!” and out comes a cell phone.
The other person saw the phone and slapped it out of the first person’s hand.
I was transfixed. It was like watching a car accident. You want to look away, but your have to see it.
Slowly, the phone spun on the floor. As it stopped, the phone’s owner looked at the phone on the floor…to the person who hit it…to the crowd…to the machine…back to the floor…then, as if overcome with a bloodlust, he screamed as he tackled the other person. The hands flew from both people. The two Target workers were screaming into their radios.
The rent-a-cops…uh…I mean Security Detail…moved as fast as their fat bodies could move them, but even they weren’t sure what to do.

cool story

I went shoplifting…er shopping yesterday and made a sport of taking stuff from various shopping carts. It was awesome. It was the first time I had ever done anything like it, but it is definitely something to try again.