Once again I managed to make it through Black Friday sales without buying more than one new television set, a lovely 43-inch 4K for $199 that fits perfectly on the console side of my desk. How’d the rest of you fare?
This year I ventured out on Black Friday, by which I mean Thursday while still digesting a variety of brown food, with the purest of intentions. Target had an artificial tree I wanted to grab at $30 (the wife is either allergic or possibly just the Grinch), and I was also hunting for some discounted clothes for my children. I am a good father.
A good father who, when the man with the vouchers for the 43-inch Element 4K TV arrived at the very back of the line (the store opened at 6PM, I arrived at 5:40), figured he deserved a new television at a stupid price for being so great, probably. Besides, it was the last voucher. You can’t turn down the last voucher. It’s bad form.
While following the flow of people slowly ransacking the Target, I wandered into the video game section, where the console cases had been thrown open in a desperate attempt to draw shoppers’ attention away from the soft, meaty employees huddling behind displays. I managed to grab one of the $99 New 3DS systems Nintendo was peddling for my nephew.
I got the tree, the television and the 3DS, along with a new Fitbit for my wife, who now owns three or possibly four of them for some reason. The next day we made it out to Walmart, where the most wonderful woman in the world bought me Transformers.
Looking back over the extended weekend, it could have been much, much worse. I could have gotten two televisions for no reason instead of just the one.
How did you folks do? Did you manage to avoid temptation, or were you out there sweating and shoving with the rest of us sheep? Did you wait for Cyber Monday? Did you buy something stupid you had no need for, simply because it was there? Let’s swap stories in the comments!