Black Friday Adventures

According to about.com, this is the origin of the term "Black Friday":

"...The origin of Black Friday comes from the shift to profitability during the holiday season. Black Friday was when retailers went from being unprofitable, or "in the red," to being profitable, or "in the black", at a time when accounting records were kept by hand and red indicated loss and black profit"

I started my black Friday, yesterday, on Thursday. CompUSA was having a sale last night from 9pm to midnight. I got the $200 computer I wanted for a relative and other techy, geeky stuff, including a laser printer.

Now before you start thinking that I'm rich, I got the laser printer for $69. Laser printers have come way down in price.

Why a laser printer? I got upset and irritable recently because we've had so much trouble keeping ink in my ink jet printer. Ink jet cartridges are very expensive in my opinion. There's no gold in those cartridges. We've tried having the cartridges refilled at a nearby store but the cartridges have been real hit and miss once we got them home. Laser toner cartridges commonly cost between $60 and $75 and can last up to 5,000 pages depending on the brand.

I've just got to the point where I want to print when I want to print. I don't want to stock up on cartridges, run to the store for a cartridge, or anything else. And I don't print that much, really.

I also got a couple of laptop coolers for $10 each. These metal devices sit under your laptop and keep them cool. If you've used a laptop for a long time, you know they get pretty warm.

CompUSA did a great job of having enough cashiers and being organized. They also handed vouchers out at their front door which calmed people down. And CompUSA had plenty of stuff for everyone. We got everything we wanted.

Now, Wal-Mart was another story. They were very disorganized. Also, on their web site they had a computer for sale. I found out after waiting and fighting the crowds at Wal-Mart that that computer was not sold in Wisconsin. WELL, why not tell us that on your web site before we spend all of sorts of time at your store???

Also, my wife, Wendy, had a bad experience at American TV where she waited for 2 hours.

Black Friday is supposed to encourage customers to buy at your store. A little planning goes a long way.