Post Thanksgiving shopping has been a tradition in my house forever. It is simply easier to buy all my Christmas gifts at once, and with the opportunity to score mad bargains and freebies, I can’t resist the urge to get out there and shop until I drop on Black Fridays. More than that, Black Fridays are a day when you join in a communal experience with your fellow like-minded shoppers; people that were complete strangers to you hours before become temporary friends while you stand in long lines and wait for hours in the cold dark night outside a store. You chat, and if the people are friendly, you talk about what you are there to buy, you share shopping strategies, and you tell stories from previous Black Fridays. It is one of the few social occasions I enjoy. Unlike parties, these events are spontaneous and the value and joy of the experience depend on a number of variables, which makes things interesting. I’ve only had one bad Black Friday, when IKEA promised one cabinet in an ad, then tried to sell us a different one when we got to the store (eventually got a $50 gift card out of that), but some Black Fridays are better than others.

This year, there were a number of sales on electronics that were too good to be true. Wal-Mart had an eMachines laptop on sale for 198.99, and I have been wanting a laptop forever. With my grandmother so often in hospital these days (she is going to a nursing home for rehab next after this latest problem), I felt a laptop would be great to be able to set up and write while she rests or when she is in surgery. It is hard to be bored waiting in a hospital, on the other hand, the time could be used more productively, and I also sometimes crave to get out of my skull and into the online world for a little escape from those surroundings. They have computers for use by the public at Mercy Hospital, down in the medical library, but the room isn’t available all the time. Thanksgiving, for example, the room was closed, it’s also closed nights and on weekends.

When I got home from the hospital on Thanksgiving day, Thursday, I opened up the paper I had bought from the stand outside on my way out, and sorted through the reams of ads, got rid of the ads from the stores I never set foot in, went quickly through the other ads, figured out what I wanted and needed, wrote a short list, and strategized. I wanted the laptop, but there were also two netbooks on sale, one at Best Buy for 179.99, and one at Office Depot for 199.00. With three stores offering buys, I thought I might have a chance to score one of the three if I got out there early enough. Wal-Mart and Best Buy were opening at 5 in the morning. Wal-Mart was offering other things in their ad that I wanted to buy so decided to go to them first. The laptop they were offering was a laptop, not a netbook, it was loaded with Windows 7, while the netbooks had Windows XP, but the main reason I chose Wal-Mart is that due to the trampling death of a security guard at last year’s Black Friday sale, I knew they must have some sort of plan to deal with crowd control this year. I was hopeful they would be on a number or ticket system which would keep the Black Friday insanity to a minimum. Anybody who has ever had to deal with Black Friday mentality knows what I’m talking about; not for the faint of heart., only hardcore shopper warriors need show up.

It was past 11 when I decided this, formulated the rest of my shopping list and plan, got all my sales sheets in order, called the bank to make sure of my balance, counted the rest of my money, and all the time in the back of my head was working the Black Friday Big Problem: When to get there. If they were opening at 5, that meant I should get there at 2 or 3 in the morning. That was four hours from now. Oh what the heck, why not just go now? Keep in mind that I hadn’t slept since 5 in the morning that day; for a variety of reasons, including two trips to the hospital, I was tired. I figured I would get out there with my blanket and curl up against the front of the store and wait until the next shopper got there, then we could head off for our cars and sleep. General line-holding etiquette is that as long as one or two people can verify your place in line, you don’t have to be there physically every moment of the waiting; that isn’t true for the most desirable items, though, and I was prepared to go either way.

I had decided to go to the Chula Vista Wal-Mart because it is across the street from the Chula Vista Target and the Game Stop, two of my other Black Friday destinations. When I got out to the Wal-Mart, before midnight mind you, the line was already way back to the garden section. Shoot! There were two nice ladies behind me with their camp chairs and blankets, they held my spot while I went back to my car for blanket and gloves, I went back to the line and we were just starting to chat, when some salesladies came out from the store and announced if anyone wanted the laptop the line was forming inside over by Jewelry. So I jumped up and ran inside, only to find that there was already a line snaking through the store for the laptop. A saleslady had been put in place to count heads; 80 would be accepted and no more, that was all the laptops they had. When she first counted, number 80 was about ten behind me, so I was relieved that I had gotten there in time. Midnight, mind you. Crazy. God knows when the first people in line had gotten there.

When the saleslady came back five minutes later with another woman to count again, suddenly I was number 80, and she told the people behind me, no more laptops. When she counted a third time, I was suddenly 82, then on another count, I was 85. I said to the salespeople that it was obvious people were cutting the line ahead and that they should have given numbers as people came in, I said I had been number 70, now I was 85. I am pretty good at making people back up and think twice; the saleswoman said she would find the manager. Three of the people behind me had listened quietly to my argument and stayed in the line.

When the manager, Lucky, came, I explained to him what happened. He said, okay, he would go get the tickets and for all of us to stay in line. Sure enough, he gave out the numbers and about five of us didn’t make the cut. I said it wasn’t our fault that they hadn’t given out numbers earlier, and the saleslady had counted me as being within the 80, now people who had gotten there later than me were getting a laptop because they had cut the line. By then a few more people had joined the line behind me. Lucky told all of us, okay, stay in line and let me see what I can do. He moved the entire line, snaking us around through the aisles in the Women’s lingerie department; across the main aisle, in the back of the store, another line was forming for something else, may have been the big screen televisions, and we heard later that there were lines for other items throughout the store. Someone from Wal-Mart came through, saw that some of us didn’t have tickets and tried to tell us that only those with tickets would get a laptop, to which I said, Lucky told us to stay. Lucky was summoned again. He came and made a final count: 13. He said, okay, these thirteen, stay in line and I’ll see what I can do. He even assigned a clerk to stand at the end of the line to make sure no one else could get in with us; we had an official babysitter.

So on that promise, us in the Lucky 13 stayed in line. Fairly soon, since it wasn’t yet one in the morning, and all of us, tickets and no tickets, would have to wait until five, people started to make themselves comfortable. Since everybody had come into the store with their outside waiting gear, such as it was, some set out their camp chairs, the rest of us found a spot on the cold floor and settled in, some with blankets or cushions, some with nothing. There was a woman and two teenagers ahead of me, behind me, two men, then two young girls and another lady; we were one subgroup, ahead of us was another subgroup, but we were all part of the larger Lucky 13 group. We started chatting amongst our little groups, different topics related to our situation, to the sales of the day; since I had brought the ads from various stores, people were asking to see them, and we began to talk about the different bargains, our strategies, where we were going next, the usual Black Friday chat. Every so often a Wal-Mart floor supervisor would come by and check on us; when she came by the first time, I asked her where were our coffee and doughnuts and everybody laughed. A few times during our wait, different store personnel challenged us as to not having tickets for a laptop; I fought off every attempt to dislodge us by repeating Lucky’s promise to us. Lucky’s name was magical; the store people would smile and bow their heads and leave us to our waiting. As for the Lucky 13, I pretty quickly got a great vibe; this was going to be a good crowd to hang out with for the next four plus hours.

As it turned out, we Lucky 13 were actually together for something like nine hours. At five when the store officially began selling the laptops, only one person could sell them, and the process was slowed because while we had been waiting in line, some of the ticket holders were sending out scouts to shop for other items. So people were getting to the cash register with fully loaded shopping carts; there were eighty people in line ahead of the Lucky 13, all we could do was wait some more.

When they began to sell the laptops to the people with tickets, I had gotten out of my spot in line and gone up to the counter and watched as the sales proceeded; I challenged one man who had not been in the line. I don’t know where he got his ticket, but I told the cashier he had not been in the line with us for the last five hours, which he did not deny, merely said that he had a ticket which entitled him to a laptop, but wouldn’t say how he got it. On my argument that it wasn’t fair that the rest of us had waited all night in line and he hadn’t, they told him to step out of the line and wait. Another woman had lost her ticket; I suggested that she also should wait until the other tickets had gone through. So they told her to wait. I stayed at the counter, and through the next hours helped them in the chaotic situation through various issues, to the point that Brenda, the woman running the show at the counter finally said she was going to give me her badge since I was clearly working there. Despite everyone’s exhaustion, we were all laughing and making the best of things. By the time they had finished the ticket holder transactions, it was past eight in the morning, and there were two people still left to deal with, the woman who had lost her ticket and the man who had a ticket but had not been in line; I huddled with Brenda and said I had no problem with them selling the woman with the lost ticket a laptop since others in the line vouched she had been with them, but not the man. That’s what was done: the woman got her laptop, but the man was told to step out of line again. When that was complete, now it was time to see what Lucky had in mind for us, so a floor supervisor was called, and I was summoned by Brenda to explain to her what Lucky had said to us. While the Lucky 13 waited on the other side of the counter, watching us talk, I explained to Brenda and the floor supervisor what had happened at the beginning of the night and what Lucky had told us. The floor supervisor summoned Lucky via the phone.

Finally, Lucky came to the counter, and took another count; yes, we were still the same thirteen, even though we had lost our babysitter hours before. We had kept ourselves in order, had kept the faith, and now we wanted our reward. Lucky was true to his word; he brought out thirteen Acer Aspire laptops, regularly $348, and sold them to us for the advertised price of the other lappies, $198.99. So we actually got a better laptop than the ones who got the tickets. We were smiling, victorious Black Friday warriors; I asked to have Lucky brought back and we thanked him and applauded him. To my great surprise, my companions then turned and applauded me and thanked me for advocating for them and being their spokesperson, which made me blush. It was nothing to thank me for, really. Sometimes all you have to do is point out the right thing to do to the right person and the right outcome follows. We got lucky with Lucky.

By that time, I was feeling faint with hunger and utter exhaustion. I was glad to get my lappy and go home. Another Black Friday for the books.