Some how, my dad talked me into going with him to Toys R Us at the midnight opening on Black Friday. We left the house at about 11:30 and arrived at the store parking lot just after 11:45. It was hectic just getting around to the actual parking spaces, but we managed. Dad let me and my girlfriend out to go ahead and secure a place in line. All was looking good when we realized our spot in line was only about 100 feet from the door. Midnight rolls around and the line starts moving. Everything is looking good until we get close to the door. We then find out that the line we are in goes past the door, around the side of the building, into the Toys R Us parking lot, past the back side of Beauregard’s, all the way to the Starbucks then raps back along the previous path back to the door. Here is where I started to question if there would be items left on the shelf by the time I got in. So the line slowly moves. Now the time is about 12:30 and we’re barely passed the u-turn at Starbucks ( oh could they have made a killing, 38 degree weather with people standing in line outside). Now the store is at its capacity, so they have to wait for people to come out of the building before they can allow more people in. By 12:45 I’ve only made it to the Joes Mugs Coffee Shop patio outside Books-A-Million. The line continues to slowly move until shortly after 1:00 in the morning, I finally make it thought the sliding door into the building. The heat hits my face and I rejoice, so happy to be warm once again until I open my eyes to see just how many people are in this building. Now I’m debating on whether I really want to deal with this or just go hang back in the cold (trust me the cold looked a lot better). Since we had not been in Toys R Us in I don’t know how long, any relative knowledge of where the stuff we were looking for did not exist. After running around and squeezing through holes I did not even realize I was capable of squeezing through, we finally got the 3 items in which we were looking for. On now we go to the checkout line. It turns out that the checkout line ran down one isle around another and back up another isle parallel to the original isle. While I am standing in line with my girlfriend and these 3 decently sized items, I get hit on the butt. Being as packed as it was, I just brushed it off. Shortly after that I was hit two or three more times. Now I was curious as to the cause, once or twice is an accident but 4 and 5 times gets you wondering. I turn around to find a woman balancing like 10 items on top of a longer item that she is holding in both hands like a two by four. While standing in this line, I did like most people in today’s modern society would do. I Hit Facebook. I found out while posting on Facebook that one of my friends was working at this Toys R Us. While talking to him I asked if he could get a hold of a buggy for me. This woman behind me was having an awfully hard time and had even more shopping to do. I went to look for the doors my friend told me to meet him at, only to find that they were blocked off by another line to get to the electronics section of the store. I find out after a quick post that he’s now moved to the front. I head around to the front before the cashiers looking for my friend so I can get this woman a cart. A manager steps in front of me and tells me I cut in line and need to turn back (I have nothing what so ever in my hands so I find it hard pressed to say that I was cutting, rather then, I don’t know, looking for someone). So being that I had the card I turned away instead of picking the battle like my instincts told me to do. This time I went around to the exit of the store, where my friend just happened to be unloading items. I go to speak to him about getting a buggy and the same manager interjects himself telling me and my friend that he needs to get to work unloading these boxes and that I was slowing him down (never mind the fact that my friend had not missed a beat on unloading since I had arrived). This time my temper rose a little. This man was literally stopping me from helping out one of HIS customers. Words came to my lips, but I bit my tongue because I still had the card and the last thing I needed was to be removed from the store for making a scene. I rejoined my girlfriend where shortly after my arrival, we checked out at 2:00. Upon review with my dad, we discovered that we had been over charged on two of the three items. Once again we referred to the Toys R Us add from the paper to be sure we did grab the right item. Upon further review, we found that those two items didn’t officially go on sale until 5:00 that morning. This lack of respect or concern for their customers tied in with their cheap gimmicks to get people to stand in line for hours for sales that don’t exist has convinced me that I have no reason what so ever to do business with Toys R Us any more.
Here’s a map to give those of you who dont know the area an idea of what I went through. Where the red line starts on the left is where I first got in line. Exuse the map as it seems to be a little old. Starbucks had not been built at the time of this snap-shot.
