Midnight Madness, for me, had some odd twists and turns but I wound up getting everything I had planned on before I made it home (before 1:30 AM, amazingly).
A friend and I decided we would hit Target at midnight, so we drove by around 11 to see there was no line and only a few cars. "Great," we thought, so to kill a few minutes, we went to the Walmart a block up the street to see what they had done. As it turns out, they had already stocked about four cases of basic 3.75" figures and two cases of the "armor" figures but not much else, leaving a ton of empty space. We didn't see anyone else around working on the area, and this particular WM doesn't have the best reputation for, well, anything, so we left to go back to Target.
Thankfully (or so we thought) there was still no line although there were more cars in the lot. One guy was seated on the big red ball on his phone, so we walked over to stand with him, only to discover the doors were open. As it turns out, the doors had been open the entire time and Target was allowing everyone to go inside. So, after my friend picked up some cat food (spoiler alert: all we wound up buying at Target that night), we walked to the back to find two separate mobs of about 40 people total in no semblance of a line. About 15 people were crowded around the action figure aisle, which was cordoned off and "guarded" by a Target employee, and the remainder were in the seasonal area for the Chewbacca raffle and other items. No line, just a crowd.
My friend finally asked where the line started and one of the guys in the group responded "Uh, here?" which wasn't helpful, but it did motivate the Target employees to organize things a bit. Two things happened the. Which soured my mood considerably, though. The first was that I got to look down the aisle itself and saw that Target had not gotten any 6" Black Series figures (my main, and my friend's only, reason for coming out). The second was a guy who came barreling down the aisle with a cart toward the Lego section and began asking, "Are those old or new?" Is that from the new movie? Is that going to be hot?" At that point, knowing how this was shaping up, and knowing we'd be leaving with nothing anyway, we left the line, she paid for her cat food, and we made it to TRU at the stroke of midnight.
TRU had about 16 people in line (counting us) and had a pretty good supply of things, all things considered. Oddly, most people went straight for Funko Pops or lightsabers, so my friend and I were able to check out the 6" figures. Unfortunately TRU only got 1 case, and a girl in front got Kylo Ren, so we split the remaining 4 (I guess the other Kylo didn't make it to the floor). I also got the Hero Mashers Fett, just because it's Boba Fett, and we got our posters and Lego brick as we left.
As we were leaving, and since it was so close, we decided to circle back to the Walmart from the beginning of the story to see if they had done anything else. As it turns out, they had done more than anybody else had, and had fully stocked EVERYTHING. So, we were able to finish our sets of 6" Black Series, plus my friend got her Hero Mashers Jar Jar, plus I got my Lego Buildable Grievous (which, let me tell you folks, is the best thing I've gotten from this whole Force Friday blitz. It's truly amazing and a lot of fun, and if you enjoy Lego and Technic building, or just want something huge and cool and fun, BUY THIS GRIEVOUS TOY.)
Over the course of the last two days, I've gotten some other things here and there at other stores, the various retailers now look like wastelands for the most part, and my bank account cries like a baby, although not as badly as it did in 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008 thanks to the lack of SA stuff (especially in the latter). Could it have been handled better? Absolutely. I think I had it luckier than a lot of folks due to living in a more rural area, so I'm thankful for that. Hopefully, though, the bare shelves will mean they get restocked soon, and hopefully it will be with new, wave 2 product, because I really want a 6" Phasma.
So, that said, my haul since Thursday at midnight:
-6" Black Series Finn, Rey/BB-8, Kylo Ren, Chewbacca, Stormtrooper
-3.75" Rey's Speeder with Rey
-3.75" Desert Landspeeder with Finn
-Hero Mashers Boba Fett, Han Solo vs Boba Fett, Jar Jar Binks
-Funko Pop Vinyl Captain Phasma, Kylo Ren, Rey (Hot Topic Exclusive Version)
-Lego Poe's X-Wing Fighter
-Lego General Grievous Buildable Figure (Seriously, guys and girls, BUY THIS!!!)
