The lengths people will go to for video games…
November 17, 2006, 11:00 AM
Sometimes I can’t get over what people will do in order to be the first to get something. Check this out:
What you are seeing is a group of people camped out in Layaway in Wal-Mart, watching a movie on someone’s laptop while waiting for the Sony PlayStation 3 to come out, as I was leaving work at 11:00 at night. On their fingers, they’re holding up the number that they got to reserve their PlayStation 3 before it came out. Thus the gentleman in the right front is number one, and the guy in the back is #5, among others. These people began their camping trip at 7:00 AM on Wednesday, November 15. The system did not hit the streets until 12:01 AM on Friday, November 17. My coworkers were able to verify that this was the case, that they really were camped out in Layaway for two days. I was off on Wednesday, so I didn’t get to see Day 1.
And what gets me is that this happened in Wal-Marts all over the place. The News Leader showed a group similarly camped out in the Staunton Wal-Mart, though based on the floor in the photo, it appears that they camped out in Garden Center rather than Layaway.
I just cannot personally imagine camping out in a Wal-Mart store for two days, spending two days inside Wal-Mart. Of course, it’s the perfect place to go camping, I guess. You have everything you need right there – sleeping bags, personal care items, and aisles and aisles of grub. Plus there are restrooms right there to take care of whatever, like changing into some fresher clothes, and hiding that not-showered-in-two-days scent. Then of course at the end of it, you drop $600, get a video game machine, and leave, to return to the outside world beyond the Wal-Mart checkouts. And I’m told that some of these people were going to resell them on eBay, and make a tidy profit on it.
All I have to say is that I hope everyone got what they wanted, because that’s just above and beyond what I’d ever do to get something…
Web site: CNN article about the PlayStation 3
Song: Ray Charles singing Shake A Tail Feather
Quote: The trick is make sure you're in the back room, well out of earshot, before saying that these people are nuts for camping in the store for two days...
Categories: Some people, Walmart