Fingerprinting and Black Friday

My younger son had today a fingerprinting appointment. When he first got his green card five years ago, he was too young for fingerprinting. At age 14, he is required to get a new card with his fingerprint. The fee this time was only $ 80, a bargain compared to the original green card costs.

My older son decided to participate at the Black Friday doorbuster game this year. He and his friend went at midnight to a big electronic store that was scheduled to open at 5 am. The store had announced to hand out tickets for the doorbusters at 3 am. When my son and his friends arrived at midnight there was already a long line.

He told us today, they had fun waiting there despite the cold because people were just talking to each other, joking around and were having a good time. At 4 am, employees of the store finally came out to distribute those tickets for the doorbuster sales. Only the first hundred in line got tickets. Each person could have up to 10.

The boys, unfamiliar with the game, were among the lucky 100 but only took two tickets. Later they learned that people were bidding for those tickets. They for example hold a ticket for a $ 500 laptop and someone offered them $ 50 if they would give it to him. Had they known, the two could have made a ton of money by just selling the tickets. Nevertheless, they are happy with what they bought and think, it was worth it to wait in line all night long.

They want to do it next year again, but after hearing what happened today I'm worried. In NY state, a Walmart worker died as 2000 people stormed into the store after door opening at 5 am. According to the news, people were even upset when they were told they would have to leave the store and couldn't continue shopping because they had crushed the worker in the stampede. I'm speechless.