Ok I admit it, I am weak. I caved in to the hype. After getting the boys a Gamecube for their birthday in December which I had planned on riding out for a while until the Wiis became more widely available, I decided there’s no time like the present. I just got sucked into the hype. Every article I read about the Wii touts the revolutionary game play. You can’t find them in stores. I have been casually watching Best Buy and Target and just kept seeing empty shelves. Yesterday while I was catching up on my RSS feeds, I came across an article/rumor that Target had been hoarding their stock and was releasing them this morning. It seemed legit as there were numerous responses verifying the claim. So I called our local Target, and sure enough, they admitted that they would be handing out tickets at 7am, 1 hour before the store opens. That little nugget festered in my mind all night.
We had a dinner party with some friends and I kept reminding myself not to drink too much wine so I could get up in the morning and go stand in line. I was in bed by 12am and had the alarm set for 5am. As I drifted in and out of an extremely restless sleep, I found myself arguing the practicality of buying one now. We just got the Gamecube and hadn’t planned for the $350 investment. Do we really need it? Of course not. At one point around 3:30am, I finally talked myself out of it and shut off my alarm, intending to sleep until 7:30am when the boys wake up. Not surprisingly, I looked at the clock at exactly 5:00am and heard Tasha ask ‘Are you getting up?’. I thought it over for all of 2 seconds and found myself mindlessly walking into the closet and reaching for the underarmor, since it is only 15 degrees. So much for practicality.
I arrived in the Target parking lot at 5:30am expecting to at least see some cars. There were about 8 cars all empty, presumably workers prepping the store for the day. I was a little surprised, but since I evidently had some time I drove back to the local Dunkin’s for some munchkins and hot tea. Might as well have breakfast while I sit and wait. Here’s a recommendation – when you order munchkins, order the number of munchkins you want, not the number of boxes. I said I wanted 2 boxes, which I thought would be 50 munchkins (25 per box per the menu). I received 2 boxes of 50 and paid double what I intended. At least I have a treat for work tomorrow.
Here’s a breakdown of the rest of my morning, which I must say isn’t at all what I expected:
6:15am – arrived back at the parking lot, which was still basically empty.
6:20am – some guy drove up, looked at the doors, and drove away
6:30am – one guy drives up, parks, gets our of his car and goes and stands “in line”…alone.
6:47am – an old lady drives up and parks in front of me. She proceeds to wait in her car. The line guy is still all by himself. He looks cold.
7:00am – no tickets are being handed out by the Target staff. Hmmm…the line is still 1 cold person long.
7:25am – the old lady leaves, stopping to talk to the line guy. She grumbles something about how rude it is to tell people one thing and not follow through and drives off.
7:40am – another guy drives up, parks, and goes to stand in line to keep the other guy company. They both look cold. At this point I have played about 57 hands of Texas Hold’em on my blackberry in my nice warm car.
7:42am – one more car parks. A woman gets out and gets in line. I decide that 5 is a quorum so I put on my gloves and go stand in line. One of the guys is from Decalb. He works at a Target there and says that this is the only one in the area that has Wiis. Supposedly they have 25 here, so we should be all good. I feel like such a loser standing in front of Target in 15 degree weather with 4 other drones waiting in line to spend money on a game system I don’t really need.
8:00am – there are now about 10 people in line when the store opens. I am cold and tired and more than a little disturbed that I could have slept until 7:45 and still been in line in time to get a Wii.
8:15am – I walk out of the Target with my new Wii and one extra controller wondering if I should have gotten 2 more so we all can play and maybe that new Zelda game on top of it. I am a trustworthy consumer.
I tried to fight it, but in the end the hype that is making the Wii the ultimate gaming console was just too much for me to overcome. I have been assimilated.
Posted by Bob 
Posted by Bob 
Posted by Bob 