I had made a little list of things to look out for, just to keep me focused. I could use a 2nd harddrive for my video editing. And my daughter wants a digital camera for Chanukah. And to go along with that we could use more SD memory cards. And there were a few other things that would be worth it if I could get a hold of them.
So I committed myself to wake up at 6:15am Friday morning. My 12-year-old son wanted to come along, so I quietly went into his room. He normally takes a bit of shaking and tickling and calling his name 10 times to wake him. But when I whispered "do you want to come shopping with me?", he sat bolt upright and said "yeh". So we grabbed some waffles and headed to our first destination.
Circuit City was our first stop, just 10 minutes from our house. We got there at 6:45am, but this was almost 2 hours after they opened. The parking lot of totally full. Not a good sign. The checkout line started at the front of the store, and snaked on all the way back and around the corner. To save $15 on a memory card and $10 on MiniDV tapes was not worth an hour or more in line. But just to be sure, I checked the racks with memory cards. Of course they were out of the ones on sale. And I didn't even check the items on the short list from my brother-in-law. I knew they'd be out of them. So we went on to our next stop.
Office Depot was our next stop, just a couple of minutes down the road. The parking lot was relatively empty, and the store looked just a bit more busy than a typical Sunday afternoon. My big surprise for my kids: a new computer for them, since the 766 MHz Athlon system upstairs was too slow to run their favorite websites. So where was the HP computer advertised for only $100 (minus a bunch of rebates)? It was on-line only. So they get us into the store, then log us onto the internet. And the big catch: $100 shipping charge. On principle, I said "forget it" and walked away. But a 2.8 GHz system with 256 MHz RAM, 40 GB disk, monitor and printer was still a bargain at $200, so I said "what the heck!" and ordered it. And of course the harddrive and memory cards were already gone.
Next stop: CompUSA about 15 minutes away. Parking lot looked good. Store looked empty. Shelves also looked empty. As usual, CompUSA had nothing left that I wanted. No DVD-RWs, no harddrives, and no memory cards. Not surprising, since they actually opened at Midnight. The assistant manager told me that he had to break up one fight, and one of the aisles had been strewn with keyboards and other products. I'm glad I did not try coming at Midnight. So we left CompUSA empty-handed.
Staples was 10 minutes away. Small crowd, empty shelves. So once again we left empty-handed, but now it was around 8am, and time for a coffee and bagel at Starbucks. I was glad I had brought my son, who didn't seem to mind the shlepping back and forth. And he got to watch some of the Star Wars III DVD on a large screen at CompUSA.
With our stomachs warm and full, we had just one more stop to make. We went to the neighborhood Walgreens. We found the camera for my daughter, a Polaroid 3.2 MP no-optical-zoom camera for $40 after $20 rebate. It was the only tangible item that we were able to come home with.
As for the computer we ordered? We did have a stack of rebate forms we were handed as we left the store. But I just got a notice that it is arriving on Wednesday. For only losing an hour of sleep and 2 hours of driving around, I came away with a computer (virtual), a camera and a little bonding time with my son. And as for Fry's? Nothing good in their ads, so we just skipped it. Been there, done that.