Low prices, high hopes get bargain hunters out early on Black Friday

Holy frappuccino, the line of cars over at the coffee place wraps around the joint like a Christmas ribbon with tailpipes.

The parking lot, at the Wal-Mart in Centennial Center, has less free space in it than Sarah Palin's appointment book.

Sam's Club next door? A hundred people huddle at the still-locked front door like they should be singing "Kumbaya" around a campfire.

It's that freakin cold, it's that freakin early, and yes, it's that freakin crazy at four-something-or-other in the morning on what some moron christened Black Friday, as if it were an Official National Holiday or something.

You want a flat screen for $248?

Come on down. All 36 checkout lanes are open and waiting.

A toddler sleeper with footies and all for $3? Well, here's a pile of 'em for ya.

A blender for $13? No? Well, get it anyway. You've always wanted to start your day with a smoothie, right?

But if you want any of that, if you want it for that price and if you want it badly enough, you should have gotten here Thursday. As in Thanksgiving. That's when the line started, genius.

Let's don't even talk about the line at Fry's.

OK. Let's talk about it. More people were lined up outside that electronics Shangri-La before the sun greeted the rest of the empty city Friday than there are property owners named Williams in Clark County. Not kidding.

Why? There is the prospect of snagging a TV the size of a Hummer for the price of a happy meal, of course. A crappy movie on DVD for only $2? A $29 digital camera with so many megapixels it'll let all your Facebook friends know exactly how many nose hairs you've got? A Nintendo gadget that does -- well, who cares what it does? It's cheap! Let's get two.

But really, why?

Because, brainiac. Simply because. Why don't you ask why we breathe air or need food to stay alive or yearn for true love.

Sheesh. Einstein.

"Sir," says the blue-vested associate at precisely 5 a.m. and zero seconds Pacific Standard Time. "Go ahead and get your two TVs."

He is talking to Kevin Ironside, whose been at the Wal-Mart for so long that he bought a chair just so he would have a place to sit while waiting in line. Don't worry, the chair was cheap.

"I'm in construction, so times are tough," says Ironside, who is 38, a little on the heavy side and visiting his mother-in-law from his place in Southern California.

"Been here since Wednesday," he says. "Had five hours sleep total."

He got here at 10 p.m. Thursday. It's 5 a.m. Friday, and the line for the 32-inch Emerson LCD 720p HDTV televisions zig-zags from the Tide to the Tombstone frozen pizzas. Ironside's got a shopping cart with his two flat screens crowding the thing like crooked bookshelves in a studio apartment. His other cart -- yeah, he's pushing two of them now, by himself -- carries a couple of el cheapo printers/copiers/scanners and a Shop Vac.

He says his brother-in-law's somewhere over on the other side of the store trying to snag a laptop for $298. That would be an HP G60-519wpm with a 15-inch display and a 250gb hard drive, to be precise. He is in a completely different line, of course.

Which brings us to nirvana, the electronics section.

You ever been to the Strip on New Year's Eve? To Disneyland on a holiday weekend? To the Superbowl afterparty? Yeah. Fun.

No luck locating the brother-in-law, but whatever. There are numerous other big-box heavens to explore, parking lots to endure, random store chatter to record.

"I have to get one of these before they sell out!"

"It was so nice meeting you too!"

Wait, look. Over there. Between the heap of doo-dads and the stack of what-nots.

A vacuum that's available in a variety of colors ranging from pink to purple and all the way to blue for only $35?

Eureka.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.