A Wii tale
Ok, so here is the whole embarrassing story.
First, I wanted to get a Wii for GB. He has a gamecube, but it broke, and all his games can be played on the Wii.
Plus, I wanted to get one for Jabem, he’s desperately wanted one since they came out a year and half ago.
But I quickly came to realize that I’d be lucky to get one, not two. So, I decided to get one for Jabem, since he’d actually asked for one. And he’s really hard to surprise!
Everyday, the week before last, I stood in line at the crack of dawn waiting for UPS truck deliveries at Walmart. And each day except Tuesday, they had nothing.
On Tuesday, they had three, I was 7th in line. That was the day there was a fight.
This old, cranky lady in a wheel chair was second in line, behind an old cranky man, who brought a chair over from the furniture department (which I thought was pretty smart).
Any way, cranky lady left, determining this to be a “ridiculous waste of time.”
So the line moved up and we were all glad to see her go. Later (two hours) she came back and wanted to get in her old place in line, insisting that the old man corroborate her rights. He wouldn’t and she got really vocal, with cuss words flying. The security guys had to be called and she got in line at about 15 back. Woo! Was she pissed when that truck came in and it only had three Wiis.
The other days, there was nothing on the truck, but the old lady didn’t come back and we turned it into a party every morning. We had coffee and donuts, and the department supervisor turned into our buddy. It was actually kind of fun.
Saturday I didn’t even go out because I had learned the week before that Circuit City, Best Buy, Target and Toys-R-Us all hold their shipments until Sunday when the newspaper circular comes out.
That Sunday, it was freezing, 38 degrees and raining. I could hear the water rushing through the gutters when my alarm went off at 5:45. I was unwilling to get up any earlier than that. I almost didn’t go because of the rain. But as I was lying there, I kept thinking that other people might not go either. So I went.
First store I hit was Circuit City. The Circuit City manager knew they had 40 Wiis, so at 4:00 a.m. with over a hundred people in line, they decided it was cruel to let them sit out there in the rain. So they passed out vouchers and told the people that they could leave and come back sometime before 12:00 noon to buy their Wii.
As much as I wished I had one of those vouchers, I thought it was nice to not keep those people in cold, rainy torment.
Next, I went to Best Buy. They had JUST given out vouchers and there was nobody there, not even a clerk. So I stood there for about 5 minutes, thinking stupidly I was first in line, ha, ha, ha! Some guy came along and told me they had only had 27 and had already given out the vouchers. Wah!
Toys-R-Us did the same thing….. Keep in mind, that all these stores are pretty much in the same vicinity, so I just went from parking lot to parking lot. And as these vouchers are getting passed out, it’s whittling down the competition at the next place, or so I was thinking.
The night before, at dinner, my sil told me she had heard that Target was going to get 85. Well, I figured she must have misheard. None of the stores got that many in….usually. But I thought of that when I drove up to Target and could see a very long line outside. I got out of my car…. didn’t even bring my coffee because I thought there was NO way I’d get one. I got in line with all the other idiotic, fanatical Wii people…. and waited. Five minutes later the Target employee comes out and says they have 72 and he will begin passing out vouchers. I was a tad miffed that he waited another 5 minutes because I could see people butting in line, but I’m not confrontational enough to make a scene.
Anyway, he went down the line, got to me…….. and I was number 69! I was super excited. His timing was actually perfect because at that exact moment, there were only 74 in line, so he only had to disappoint two people. After the vouchers were passed out we had to wait an additional hour for the store to open, but I was so happy, I didn’t care at that point. It was really hard telling all the people who came later that they were all gone, though. They probably had an additional 50-75 people come after me. The lady who was first in line had gotten to Target, and set up camp, at 10:00 p.m. the night before. I’m sure as heck not THAT crazy! I feel like I got really lucky…. But darn it! I was on a mission! And I was gonna fulfill that mission at some point before Christmas. Thank goodness that’s over!
Jabem was VERY happy and really surprised, which is a coup, believe me. And if you know how very technically inept my dh is, you will think that this picture is as funny as I do.
I am ashamed to say that we took the easy way out…. Ebay. We were able to get one of the “Family Fun Bundles” that Sam’s Club advertised in their Black Friday sale bill. Yes, it was a little bit more than they were selling it for (which was a *great* price), but was worth the extra in terms of the time and aggravation it saved us. It came with 3 Wiimotes, 3 Nunchuks, Super Paper Mario, Mario Party 8, Brunswick Bowling, and Wii Sports. We also bought the High School Musical “Sing It” for our 9yo daughter. It is FUN! I’ve seen more of my 16yo in the last 2 days than I have in the last 2 weeks.
Comment by Karen — December 27, 2007 @ 12:04 am
Wow that was alot of effort on your part! I do have to say I am quite jealous. I know a certain husband who wold have loved to receive one for Christmas. I bought a system that would play the old Nintendo and Super Nintendo games instead. We get to use all our old games again! Happy Holidays.
Comment by Gerky — December 27, 2007 @ 8:20 am
WOW! What a dedicated mom you are.
Comment by
tribeofautodidacts — December 27, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Well, don’t leave ole grampa out of this. I was asked if I would look in the Circuit City and Best Buy circulars early Sunday morning (we get up about 5:30) and if the Wii was in either to go to that store and see if we could get one. They were in both circulars, so Gramma and Grampa got in the car with OUR coffees. We decided we would check the Target closest to us, and when we got there the line was so long we elected to keep on going. I would be annoyed, now, if I found out that they had 70 or so also, because I don’t think the line was quite that long. We checked out K-mart also (sign on door - no Wii’s), and then headed south to the mall, where we checked out Circuit City (sign on door - all gone), then Best Buy. Best Buy was open, but they had already sold out. Sheesh. That’s when I called dear old daughter to tell her we failed (sob), and she told us about being at the OTHER Target and actually going to be able to get one. We went home, poured some more coffee and waited for dear daughter to arrive, since our home is on the way to hers. I wonder if those things will be in stock by summer. lol. I had also gone on an expedition that Thursday to a couple of places, and no luck then either.
Comment by Grampa — December 27, 2007 @ 2:17 pm
Glad it all worked out in the end! My niece has a Wii and she brought it to Grandma’s and we got to play it. I’d never played before and it was pretty neat! She got a new Mario Galaxy game and my dd helped her play it for about 4 hours one day.
(I wouldn’t let this happen except for Christmas!) And, my dd got a Nintendo DS for Christmas and went and picked out a Mario game with some of her Christmas money. She already has 6 games!!!
Comment by Dana — December 28, 2007 @ 10:51 pm
Hey, I just got a Wii for the boys yesterday. What a job it is to find one!
You asked about the ClearPlay DVD player - yes about $100 to get the player and a year’s worth of filtering. We’ve had it since August and love it. We bought ours at Target (last time I looked, they were marked down a few dollars so there may be newer models coming out or they’re getting rid of them, lol). The first one we had was defective and the company was great about replacing it for us - then a couple of weeks ago a button fell off the remote and they sent a new one. So while we’ve had a couple of hardware problems - the customer service has been outstanding and I am still pleased. We were able to watch Transformers without the “scene” that so many complained about in a movie for kids. Before we had this we used the TV Guardian. TVG is good… but ClearPlay is the best.
And… I’m not Christine. I hope you’ll still visit, though! I enjoy reading your blog and will try to post more and lurk less.
Happy New Year!
Comment by
morethanfine — December 31, 2007 @ 11:19 am