The day after.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Belami and I had a low-key, relaxing holiday!

I'm sure you are all excited to hear what my first Midnight Madness experience was like. I went into work at 10:30 pm and we were scheduled to open at midnight. When I was unlocking the door, 2 groups of people asked me if we were open yet! I told them that all the stores opened at Midnight and one girl corrected me, saying "Actually some of the stores are already open." Well Excuuuse me!

While we were getting ready to open SO many people came over and pulled on the door so we opened around 11:30 pm, to get things rolling. Then it just got crazy! There were a million people in the store VERY QUICKLY- it was weird. You literally couldn't walk!! At one point I went in the back to look for a size and when I came back out I could hear Stacie calling me from the register but I just couldn't get there!! No one would get out of my way! About 15 or 20 minutes after opening the doors a line began at the register and wrapped around the ENTIRE store- I'm not even kidding, no exaggeration here! It was like that for the next 2 hours straight! One of our employees, Mark, was helping people in the men's department but he came over and said he would help us bag up people's purchases because he couldn't even walk around men's due to the line that had formed.

Even though it was so busy things actually went incredibly smoothly. The customers were great and fun and they were all asking us how long we had to work and wishing us luck for the long night ahead! And I was actually wishing my customers luck as they continued with their shopping! I think the shoppers were prepared for chaos so they were pleasantly surprised at how efficient we were! Everyone is incredibly impressed with how amazing our deals are right now and it sounds like the rest of the outlets were running some great sales too. After the rush you should have seen the state the store was in- it looked like a hurricane had come through! We all just had to laugh and then start straightening! Everyone did such a great job getting things back in order and after a couple of hours the place looked decent again.

I was full of energy and having a lot of fun but then it slowed down quite a bit from about 2am to 5am so by that time we were all getting a little tired and antsy. By 8:30 am I was SO ready to go home, I was tired, my feet and back hurt- the last hour was the worst! I got home around 9:45am and immediately got into bed! I slept until about 2:30 pm and when I woke up I was really hungry because all I had eaten the whole night was a small bag of Doritos and half of a cinnamon muffin! My appetite was all messed up because of the weird hours, I think.

One funny thing that happened last night involved our music. We have a soundtrack that we listen to during business hours but then there is a selection of songs called Hot Traxx that we listen to before and after hours which plays top 40 hits. We all like it a lot better than the J. Crew soundtrack but obviously we can't listen to it while we are open. Well last night because of the time of night the stereo wouldn't switch to the J. Crew station from Hot Traxx so all night we cranked the fun tunes! I actually think it was better for the employees and shoppers since they all needed something upbeat to keep spirits high and keep everyone awake!

Midnight Madness was quite an adventure and I'm glad that I got to participate. I can't say that I will ever want to shop this event but I guess I understand the appeal of all the good deals. Other than that I don't know why people do it- for the excitement maybe? But long lines, packed stores, horrible traffic... not my cup of tea.

Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.
Bo Derek

I can think of a few hundred people who would probably agree with Bo on that one....