Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Grandma on a Mission

So I casually suggest to my mother that there is this new Elmo toy coming out that maybe she would like to get for Brandt for Christmas, provided it's the ONLY thing she gets him for Christmas since it's $60 and Brandt already has too many toys that seem to multiply at night while we sleep. Our house isn't that big and 1/3 of it is now occupied with toys and baby stuff. And that's after we moved the swing, bouncer, high chair, 7 boxes of baby clothes, 3 boxes of toys, and his old car seat OUT of the house. Anyway, I saw the Elmo toy advertised in the Target ad Sunday:

Elmo Live. In stores Tuesday, October 14th. Limit 2 per customer.

So of course I assumed there would be a high demand, given past years of Elmo obsessed consumers buying the "it" toy of the season (Tickle Me Elmo, TMX Elmo). Well, it's not the "it" toy yet. My mom got to Target at 7am and she was the only one in the parking lot. So she sat in her car and waited. And waited. Surely more people would show up before 8am. One guy did, at 7:45. A target employee handed them each a ticket guaranteeing them an Elmo. When the store opened at 8am, my mom walked up to the electronics counter, presented them with her ticket, got the Elmo, walked to the check out lanes, and was back in her car by 8:05. Very uneventful for her.

I feel kind of bad, since my mom enjoys the challenge of these sorts of things ... the thrill of the hunt. She was obsessed with Cabbage Patch Dolls back in the day when they were it "it" toy. She plows past people during the day-after-Christmas sales. She's a pro. This whole process was too easy for her, so she was slightly disappointed.

Maybe she would have felt a little bit more victorious if the other guy who was waiting pushed her on his way to the Elmos.

2 comments:

Colleen said...

I am totally with your mom, I love the thrill of the hunt!!! I don't like that they do tickets now, and I don't like that it is so organized. I like to knock some people out along the way, LOL!

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