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DAY 1: SCALPERS
SUCK! We arrived at Toys 'R Us at approximately 11:00pm, and it was cold and raining. If it weren't for the fact that it was less then one hour away, from me spending some damn good money on Revenge of the Sith toys, I wouldn't have been standing in line out there. We noticed there were already about 30 people who were also waiting to step inside TRU. Since I hadn't been to a Midnight Madness before, I really didn't know what to expect. I was thinking it was going to be total chaos and lines more than a mile long, but fortunately that wasn't the case. As we were walking up to the store someone yelled, "Hey dustrho! Over here buddy!" I couldn't tell who was trying to get my attention, because this person had a hooded sweatshirt covering his face (it sort of reminded me of Emperor Palpatine). Then I recognized it was one of my buddies from another board. He had been camping out there with a bunch of other people, and he had been there since 8:00pm. He had a patio table and chairs out there, and you could tell he was having himself a grand 'ole time. Jeff and I then moved to the back of the line, and the hour we had to wait seemed like an eternity! I was so damn anxious to get inside that I thought I was going to have a heart attack! Then, when timing couldn't have gotten any better for us the doors had opened, and people started moving inside. This was the moment we had been waiting for! Seeing as we were only about 30 people deep, it really didn't take all that long to make it inside the building. People were casually walking up toward all the ROTS toys, and I was starting to think to myself that it was going to be a nice and enjoyable evening. I thought too soon, because that's when all hell broke loose! People started running toward the figures like they were trying to escape a building that was on fire... it was total chaos! I then found myself in the back of this huge mob of people, and I tried my hardest to get my ass up toward that basic action figures. I finally got up pretty close, but then I saw this what looked to be a married couple (for the story I'm going to call them Mr. & Mrs. Scalper, which is MUCH better than what they deserve to be called), knocking people out of the way, so that they could get everything they could get their hands on. Mrs. Scalper started knocking people to the ground, including children! It was a freakin' nightmare! There were people shouting, "Get the f@#$ off me lady!" And I know I was just about to knock her on her ass, because I could barely tolerate what she was doing. It was time for me move in for the kill, and get myself some toys. I pushed as hard as I could, and Mrs. Scalper got out of the way to dump her enormous load of figures into her husband's shopping cart. I then had a free lane to make it right in front of the figures, so I started grabbing everything I could. In my first run up to the pegs of figures I think I snagged close to 15 figures, and since I couldn't carry anymore I ran back toward an empty shopping cart that I had left in a secret location. After inspecting what I had snagged up I was pretty impressed with what I collected. Everything was a one-of-a-kind, and since Mr. & Mrs. Scalpers were back in the pile of people I decided to track down Jeff. It didn't take long to find him, because he had discovered another area where boxes upon boxes of action figures were ready to be opened by us. It wasn't another section devoted just to this Midnight Madness promotion, but it was located in the area where Star Wars products are normally sold. During a matter of say 30 minutes, Jeff and I had pretty much picked up everything we could have gotten our hands on. If I had gone there alone, there would have been no possible way to move an entire shopping cart in the store, and let alone be able to protect my bounty from other people trying to grab items out of my cart. That reminds me of something I almost forgot to tell you. There were a few figures in my shopping cart that had been taken (or better off "stolen"). I know for a fact that I had a Chewbacca sitting on top of it, and when I had gotten home that night I discovered that he was MIA (missing in action). People stealing crap out of others' shopping carts... boy, was I pissed off! Jeff decided to take his stuff up to the register and pay for his things, because I was still going through a couple of boxes just to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. When I was done looking I brought up my shopping cart (which was completely full with new toys) to check out. While the store employee was ringing me up he had asked if I had an enjoyable evening or not, and I told him, "I had a great time tonight, but it could have been a lot better if it were for those two (I pointed toward them) who were basically scalping. The employee apologized (which was cool), and asked if he could do anything about it. I told him that nothing could really be done, but then one of the store managers walked up and asked the same thing to me. I explained to her what had happened with Mr. & Mrs. Scalpers, and she offered to either file a store complaint or to call the police. I wasn't going to do either of the two, but I did encourage her to not let that scalping team walk out of the store with anything. They didn't deserve to walk out of there with anything Star Wars related for the way they acted that evening. I'm not sure if that happened, but I could only hope so. Overall, it was a fun time spending so much money on some great Star Wars toys. Here's a brief list of some of the items I did end up purchasing from TRU:
Oh, and I almost forgot... they didn't have the Holographic Yodas! Luckily though, fellow staff member starfox is hooking me up with one (thanks Dave!). DAY 1 CONT'D:
NOT MUCH AT MEIJERS They had all of their figures on an island in the middle of a very wide aisle, and it also had lots of Darth Vader helmets, Talking Yodas, and a few different LEGO sets. There was also a smaller island that had ROTS board games (Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Chess, etc), puzzles, and even that lightsaber game you play on your TV. What was unique about this smaller island was that it talked to you! Well, not really, but it did have a motion sensor built into the side of it, and you heard several different quotes from the Dark Lord himself, Darth Vader! Finding just those two needed figures and the Republic Gunship made the trip worth our while. DAY 2:
TARGET, TARGET, AND MORE TARGET We walked over toward the Star Wars area, and I was incredibly surprised at how they had decked out the place with ROTS toys! There was an entire aisle jam-packed with ROTS toys, plus there was an end-cap full of basic figures. It was a goldmine, because they had every single figure there except for that damn Red Royal Guard (only figures #1-32). I looked down at the shelves and noticed a lonely ARC-170 Fighter, and I quickly dove to the ground to put it in my shopping cart. This thing looks gorgeous, and I can't believe something this big is only costing us $30. I can't complain though! I then looked through all of the figures that were hanging on the pegs, found all of the ones I was missing, and gently placed them in my shopping cart. Damn, was I happy camper. I was so happy that I probably could have skipped out of going to TRU the previous night, but that in its own peculiar way was worth it. I decided to run to two more Targets out in my area, just to see what else these places had to offer. The second one really didn't have much of anything, so I quickly got the hell out of there and headed toward Target #3. This third Target was another goldmine for me, because I was able to find myself eight Clone Troopers (#6). I quickly grabbed those and an Obi-Wan Kenobi Figure/Cup and left the building. IN SUMMARY
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