I started going shopping on Black Friday about 10 years ago, Love it....There are some stores I will NOT go to for any sale..Best Buy is by far the worst on Black Friday. Got there early and stood in line with my sis-n-law,about 10 years ago,cold miserable, doors opened and tons of people got out of thier cars and ran in, in front of all the people that had been standing in line. Talk about some upset people...Oh and I "did" have a Swag Bag but some "nut" stole it from me in Krogers the other day !! ( I keep my coupon book in it and had it out looking thru the coupons, turned around and walked down an aisle, went to look for my bag to put coupon book back in it and was gone!)

I'm with you Sheri. I worked retail throughout college (in the mall no less!) and have seen some super crazy things and several incredibly rude people. It takes the fun & spirit out of shopping. I will never again venture out on Black Friday. I hate crowds anyway, and the larger the crowd, the ruder the people are, and I would probably be one of those people yelling at everyone else, lol. Besides - I just finished all my Christmas shopping last weekend, and believe, for the items that I needed to get, I got far better deals these past few weeks online than I would even get on Black Friday and after. Best of luck to everyone BRAVE enough to attend Black Friday sales. Me - I will be home sleeping! lol!!!

Well this is my parents story, it was 1984-you guessed it, the Cabbage Patch craze!!! So my mom and grandmothers all made calls everyday to all of the stores that carried toys for months to see if they had any CPKs. Finally, they got the good news that Best Products was going to have them in stock. Both my parents went to the store, so that they could got one for me and one for my sister. Sure enough my dad was front and center when they started handing them out and he passed the first one to my mom who was standing right behind him and 3 women tried to steal it away. Then he got the 2nd one and turned to walk up to the register with my mom when this angry lady started going off on him for getting two of them, he tried to walk away (fyi, my dad was 250lbs of pure muscle at the time) so this woman jumped on his back and wouldnt let go!! See was determined to get that CPK. he tried peeling her off with one hand while tightly clutching the doll in the other. The only thing that got her off of him was a security guard pulling her off and escrting her out. My parents made thier way through the checkout and we walking out to the car when the lady came out of nowhere then going off they they got 2 and that she didn't get one and now she's banned from the store. They planned on putting the CPKs in the car and doing more shopping, but after that they went home for fear that woman would break in to the car and steal them, what a nut!!!

I love Black Friday! My Mom and I go out every year at 4 am. We stand in line before the store opens and reassure each other that we are not one of "those" people! But growing up in a large family it was great (and still is) to have some time alone with my mom...and 1,767 other people:)My crazy story was 2 years ago, we were in line at Wal-mart, the police were there for managing the crowds when a lady started yelling at an officer that she had to be one of the first in the store to get a TV. She tried everything from bribes to crying to get him to put her in the front of the line. Finally she hit him! Well she was arrested and didn't even make it into the store. Still love Black Friday and can't wait!

i love black friday i think the only craziest thing i have done is the past two years i have camped out in front of a store. Although i can tell you the craziest thing i have seen is ladies in check out going through other peoples buggies while they had their backs turned.

i absolutely love black friday! my 15 year old daughter and i have been going for the past 4 years. i cant ever find anyone else who is willing to get up that early to go with me. i have definitely seen a lot of funny things happen at black friday. one i will never forget...my daughter and i split up in the store w/seperate things to get. she was getting a comforter set for me. a lady asked her to grab one for her too. so she did. on her way back to me (at the other end of the store) someone snatched it out of the buggy!!! so she starts chasing the person thru the store LOL. well she never got the other comforter set back. we saw the lady (who wanted the other comforter set). we were ducking and dodging thru the store to avoid telling her that someone stole it from us. it was hilarious...my daughter would see her and say "mom there she is!" so we would hide behind the rack until she was gone and make a run for it...we are excited and ready for FRIDAY :)

I camp out right after Thanksgiving dinner every year... usually at best buy. I guess I am one of "those people". I think it is an absolute blast. Every year we make new friends in line and have never had any problems. The BB I go to usually has off duty copys to keep any line jumpers out. The funniest thing I have ever seen was one of those electronic dolls the kids get in high school. The teenager was behind us in line and everyone took turns "babysitting".

I will be venturing out this Friday, but only to Walgreens and Rite Aid for their sales. I am not really great with big crowds. However, I did volunteer this year to wrap presents at the mall on Friday for hospice care. I've done this for the past three years, and I think it's the best way for me to spend Black Friday.

I work in retail and I have seen crazy people already starting and it's not Black Friday yet! I work for a children's clothing store and we had two customers who wanted the last sweater in stock for their daughters. It came down to one mom insulting the other mom's daughter. Now of course we offer to call online to get the item we don't have in stock shipped for free to your home but I guess today's society is all about having it their way NOW. I was completely shocked that it came down to calling the other daughter names. Good role models for the girls, huh? I am NOT looking fwd to working on BF but since I don't have to be in until 10, I will be out shopping beforehand!

I was at a Menards store (if you haven't heard of it, consider it the Home Depot of the Midwest) and they have very oversized carts for all the home building needs. The morning after Thanksgiving, the crowd was packed around the doors and there was nothing resembling a line. People were pushing others to get their hands on a cart and were taking things out of other peoples cart... you know, the usual!

The most memorable moment was when I overheard a mother tell her daughter to watch their cart. Looking at the cart, it seemed to be a HUGE task for any person, let alone this woman's daughter. Oh yeah, did I mention that the daughter was not a day over 2 years old?! Off goes 'responsible mom' to go get more bargains.

I will brave through black friday... I've only been going for the past three years. I personally can not stand the crowds of women who randomly stop in the middle of the ailse, but i brave through it. My friend and i pack a lunch to eat until restaurants open. I have seen numerous people with walkie talkies talking about the steals they have picked up and what ailses they are in

I LOVE Black Friday! The best story I have was last year: I took my sister for her first BF experience (she always thought I was crazy). I told her to stick with me when the doors opened then we'd split up and hit the "hot spots". When the doors opened, I started in and noticed a lull in traffic behind me. When I looked back, my sis had frozen, wide-eyed, and stacked up traffic behind her. It was funny! She says now that she was contemplating getting in the fetal position to cry. NOW, though, she is planning her route. After the initial shock and panic, she became hooked!!

I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with my daughter (back in 1997) and I wanted to make certain she had EVERY Holiday Barbie from her first Christmas until...well...until she got old enough to buy them herself! Well, I got to Toys R Us at 4:30 in the morning and was ecstatic to find out that I was the first one in line! I waited and waited and no one else showed up! I was thinking about maybe buying two or three of them and reselling the other ones on Ebay! Well, when 6:30am rolled around and I was STILL the only one there, I decided to leave and go to a pay phone and call my mom. When she answered, she was FREAKING out and was getting ready to call the police because I wasn't home and how DARE I leave home on Thanksgiving Day. Yep. Talk about a pregnancy moment. Thought Thursday was Friday and was so traumatized by it, I never made it to the actual Black Friday sale! I got a cell phone for Christmas that year :)

I think the funniest thing I ever saw was someone who had camped out at Best Buy one year and them sleeped throught the big rush. A few of us tried to wake him up but he was out, there was no budging him. My husband and I ended up buying the item he wanted and gave it to him.

My story is not very funny but here it is: Hubby and I got up early one black friday about 7 years ago, stopped at the local Waffle House and ate breakfast (we had time, back then the deals didn't start until about 7am). I wanted a laptop from Best Buy....for some reason our bank card would not work, the sales person held on to the laptop for us to go apply for a Best Buy card, there were many, many other people waiting to do so also. I started feeling woozy and hot and thought it was just the excitement and the crowd, well I got worse. I told my husband we had to leave! We got in the car to try to race home because I knew I was going to be sick, I had all of the sales papers laid out in my lap just in case.....it took us 15 minutes just to get out of the parking lot and on the road toward home. After about a mile we had to pull over into another stores parking lot and ugh, I lost my delicious breakfast right there! Turns out I had a 24 hour bug and was sick every 30 minutes for the next few hours. I have only ventured out to one other black friday since then.

I don't dare venture out on Black Friday. I did it once, and it mentally scarred me for life. People banging into your cart, snatching stuff out of your hand, and I know I took a few elbow jabs while navigating through aisles. It just isn't fun for me. My fun is finding bargains all year through and being done holiday shopping well before Thanksgiving. THAT is a thrill to me. And Swaggrabber helps me accomplish this goal year 'round.

I shop on black friday if there is something specific I want. After all, a deal is not a deal if you really can't afford to buy anything. ;)

Anyways, I've never seen anything like the crazy stories shared above. I usually just shop for clothes. The couple years that I've shopped, the crowds have been minimal, making because I'm only visiting department stores? This year we'll be at JCPennys looking for work pants for my husband and hopefully a new church skirt for me. Easy enough.

Well I can't say this is crazy but here's my story. I guess I
can say it was an early Christmas Present.
I hadn't seen my Daddy in about 10 years, I was 19 and working at
at the Pic N' Save (anybody remember that great store?
$1.00 layaways). I was working behind the electronics counter and I heard a customer asked to see a camera.
Even though I hadn't seen him in over 10 years, I knew that
voice. I looked up and there he was, standing there in front
of me.
Needless to say I took my break and we went to the cafe in the
store and just talked and cried. I had to go back to work so we
made arrangements to see each other again.
The 2nd of this month marked the 2 year anniversary of my Daddy
dying, so as this "Black" Friday is near, I can't say I would
call it "Black" Friday.

Sorry, not a crazy "Black" Friday story but a "Black" Friday
story anyways.

Ronda

The craziest thing I saw was about 4 years ago at a WalMart in California where I used to live. There were people literally climbing over people's (on top of) backs to get to items in the electronics department. The police & the ambulance had to be called for some of the people who got trampled! Since then, I don't do black friday. I did it almost every year previous; but it's not worth it anymore....

Black Friday! Oh what a morning. All around, people set their alarm clocks early to rush out of the house to their deal destination. One would assume that the craziness always occurs in the stores. What one doesn’t always guess is that the prime place for madness is the parking lot. Or as us Bostonians say the pahking lot. I have guaranteed proof.
Flashback - November 30, 2007. Twas’ the morning of Black Friday and all through our house alarm clocks rang and newspapers rippled. My mom and I awoke with such enthusiasm. We decided to hit the mall first since that is where our insert advertisements had navigated us to travel. We were all set - swift sneakers, costly charge cards, and masses of money. Off to the mall we went! Dashing by cars, vans, and trucks, we were able to make it to the mall in perfect time. Road block. Where to park? Fear not, my mom has a special V.I.P. parking pass (handicapped parking). As I was about to pull into the vacant space….. VHROOSH! A car’s front was easing its way trying to beat us on the left. VHROOSH! Another car’s backend was sliding its way to the right. We were stuck in a turkey sandwich! Us - the turkey. Plus, the two other cars were the buns. I could not believe it. Honestly, I was not up for a battle at 4am in the morning. I was ready to surrender. My mom and I went cold turkey. To my surprise, a man got out of his car and started to kick the other “bun.” We were in shock. Next, thing you knew, the women in the other car got out and with her crutch and put a huge dent in the man’s car. People from all locations of the parking lot began to holler and shout. The melee continued. I did not want ANY cranberry sauce to be shed. As the two wild turkeys took care of their argument and fight, I slowly backed up and decided to relinquish our V.I.P. parking. We were smart enough to find another space far away in the parking lot away from the outrageous V.I.P. shoppers.