Just another manic launch day

Holy cow.

After a long 'will-I won't I' of console confusion, I gave in to Mario and now own a Nintendo Wii. All it took was 17 hours out of my day, 4 layers of clothing, a comfy chair, two flannel blankets, and a fully charged iPod. A mob of people talking helped keep me awake too.

I started my quest by calling various Meijer stores to see how many systems were available and how many spots were filled. All of them. Actually, some stores had 4 spots openend to which I squealed in delight until the person on the phone told me- "You might want to hurry, you're the sixth person to call within the last 20 minutes." Crap. I called Target next and was surprised to hear that one person was waiting in line. ONE. I managed to have a half decent Saturday consisting of laundry, lunch, and a movie before heading out to reserve my spot in line. I thought to myself- "I'll end up being in the teens". I was number two. This was 3:30.

So I sat with number one until number three showed up 30 minutes later. There was a number four until he realized it wasn't a line for PS3. He muttered something and stormed off.

And that's when the idiots came out.

Among the hundreds of eye rolls, shock, laughter, and stupid questions*- we were mocked by eight year olds. Yep, two snot-nosed eight year olds had nothing better to do but...well, be eight year olds. When we stopped paying attention to them, they left.

*Stupid questions included:
What's a Wii?
How long have you've been out here?
Are you crazy?
Do you have a life?
Is this a bus stop?
Are you in line for a PS3?
What do you do when you have to pee?
Are you homeless?
No really, are you crazy?

Anyway, more people (now numbers 4-10 I believe) started showing up around 9 p.m. or so. One woman in line had previous experience with launch days and took out a pen to help keep track of who was in what order and bathroom breaks. It was a nice honor system we had going- no angry mobs, gun shot, or the like. We were a pretty chumy bunch, us Wii freaks. At one point we had 6 people in a Mario Kart tournament on their Nintendo DS's. Fun stuff.


Overall I think I got 4 hours of sleep. That's gonna hurt come Monday. We all were amused by two drive-by a-holes screaming at us to get a life or whatever. This was 1:00 a.m. At least we had a purpose. What a great way to spend the night- driving around screaming at people. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. Tools.

Slowly the Target employees lumbered like zombies back to the store for opening/set-up. "Man, its cold out here!" one of them said. Really? I didn't notice. Huh. The sarcasm level was getting a tad high at this point. Oh well, it was late and even with all my layers and body heat I was numb. I told numbers 3-6 we should sit in a circle- they agreed and the heat slowly returned to my legs.

I don't know what hour it was but I do remember some girl from Best Buy stopped by and was trying to sway us to the dark side of waiting in line over there with a $5 giftcard incentive. Yeah, no thanks. Plus, Target opened a hour earlier than Best Buy anyway...it was losing battle for her.

Finally- a Target juggernaut of a security guard came out and gave us the lowdown (this is when I woke up from my 2 hr catnap) He handed out numbered tickets with Wii brochures and a little red golf pencil. Why we were given a pencil, I don't know, there was nothing to fill out. Weird. Compensation for freezing? Who knows?



Our number tickets were our place in line, so everyone scattered for an hour or so. I returned home to heat, a bathroom, and my warm bed. Ahhhh...... I returned back to Target and with my Wii pals in tow, we stood at the doors as the Target employee's eyes widened as they proceeded to dive out of the way. Obviously, the PS3 buyers were jackals compared to us. The doors opened and we all walked in slowly huddled together. Target workers seemed shocked that we were so calm, that didn't stop the hot cashiers from giving us that final eye roll/ hand diss as we strolled past. We approached the electronics department and were each given a little tour of the gaming aisle. It was kinda neat, like each of us were winners on a game show picking out prizes. Door number one?? More freebies awaited us- a demo dvd of Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Tony Hawk, and a Wii info dvd. Can't watch it on the Wii though. No dvd player. Again-huh. Number one and I (funny I never asked what his name was) stepped up to get our Wii's and noticed there wasn't any controllers to be seen. 'Where are the controllers?' we both asked in a slightly angry tone. Things could get ugly. A bead of sweat was rolling down the cashiers brow as they radioed for backup. 10 minutes later, one box came out. I bought an extra wiimote and nunchuk along with the system. I'm still waiting for Elebits (a ghostbusters/pikmin style game) that comes out in December. Number four bought three complete controllers and then the Target Juggernaut stepped in and told them to limit the number of controllers we could buy.


With my Nintendo gold clutched in hand and a $300 hole in my wallet I skipped out to my car and returned home, happy, groggy, and mystified at all that had transpired this past Saturday. Should I decided to shop with the real crazys (day after thanksgiving shoppers) Black Friday will be a cake walk.

Zzzzzz.....