Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
I hadn't done any Christmas shopping yet this year so I decided to make an early run at some black Friday specials. It's been years since I got myself up early to join the lines of bargain hunters willing to wait outside for stores to open. I told myself this will be the last time I'll ever do it.
There aren't any stores in our town that advertise black Friday bargains (or bargains any other days) so I headed 25 miles away to a Menards hardware/lumber yard in Columbus. I didn't think they'd have big crowds. Their flyer listed door opening time as 6:00 a.m.
I drove past a Walmart on the way there and saw their parking lot was nearly empty. I took it as a good sign that I might be first in line. It was 5:00. As I pulled into the entrance my jaw dropped. Even without their parking lot lights on I could see that it was packed. I threw out my plan of waiting inside a warm vehicle until just before 6:00 and hurried to get in line. It was 30' outside. I'd estimate there were about 500 people ahead of me. By the time the doors opened there was another 1000 behind.
There were only a few items on my list that I really wanted to get. Although I could have gotten them elsewhere, this sale would save me almost $200. Waiting in line I was picturing each of the people ahead of me carrying my sought after goods to the checkout before I could find them. Worst case scenario I figured I'd buy some alkaline batteries and light bulbs. Surely they wouldn't run out of those.
The wait wasn't as miserable as what I thought it would be. There wasn't any wind so the cold temperature was somewhat negated by the heat radiating from fellow shoppers in the 5 wide line. My biggest annoyance was the 100-150 extra people that came later who had friends allow them in line ahead of me.
When the doors finally opened there was a mad dash for the shopping carts. I could see that it looked like a rush hour traffic jam. The folks with the carts could barely move. I made a quick decision to skip the cart. Without being tethered to one I was able to avoid the jam and head straight to the place I thought I'd find the holy grail. - The SNAP-ON power washer!
I was in luck! When I got there, - there were still 2 left. It was a bit heavy lugging it around the store with me but I had it! HAH!! What's a few more aches and pains from my back compared to the satisfaction of making the score.
I'm sure I was grinning ear to ear as I struggled to carry it around the rest of the store. I was invigorated by my first kill and eager to see if I could land more bargains before hitting the check out aisles. Luckily I was pretty familiar with Menards. It's where I usually go for hardware supplies. Not only did I find everything that I had on my list, I also found a handful of unadvertised bargains. I even bought the batteries!
In their toy section I saw they had more of those light up billboards on sale for $3 each. The basement racetrack already had enough but at that price I figured it could gain some more. I picked up 6 of them.
As I drove home I started thinking to myself, maybe I could do this again next year.
