where were you at 12:01 on march 20?

so, stacie is an avid twilight fan.  i think she has read the series twice. by my calculation, that's about 5072 pages.  while i haven't read a single word of the series, i have seen the first movie...more than once.  if you know anyone that is interested in the movies, you know that new moon has been released on dvd and went on sale at 12:01 on saturday, march 20. so i ask, where we you?

i was at the local walmart, just as any other loving husband should would be when asked by his wonderful wife to go with her to be one of the first to own it on dvd. i have never been the type to camp on the sidewalk for concert or movie tickets.  i have never been shopping on black friday.  truer words have never been spoken when i say that i have never been involved with anything like what i witnessed at walmart on saturday morning around midnight.

we got to the store about 11:15 to assess how this deal was going to go down.  the parkng lot was relatively vacant.  we got a parking spot really close to the front door.  as we were walking in, we fell in behind two early-20's young ladies and knew right away that we would be seeing them again back in the electronics section.  by the time we made it in, we had some call-in orders from carrie and jennifer. under no circumstances were we supposed to leave the premises without four copies of new moon and one copy of twilight. so we made our way to the back, just to see if they had put the displays out and already had the movies on the shelf.   at this point the crowd was sparse.  but at 11:45, it looked like a mini-convention.  folks of all ages and from all walks of life. 

you got to give it the folks at walmart.  clearly, this was not their first rodeo.  they were trained in the finer points of crowd control and misdirection in order to avoid pandemonium.  a sales associate gained everyones attention by handing out a pop quiz on new moon.  fifteen multiple choice questions that could only be answered by the most devoted twilight fans.  whoever got the most right would get a free edward or jacob water bottle. the mother of all contests.  especially when taking into consideration that the questions were based on the movie version of new moon instead of the book version.  10 minutes to answer 15 questions.  i was less than surprised when one of the two girls we had seen coming in won by answering all but one question correctly. based on her confidence and demeanor, i am convinced that the answer key was in error and the girl had really answered all the questions correctly.

now i have absolutely no training in the social sciences.  anything that i might think i know comes merely from brief research skewed heavily in favor of my bias for what im trying to prove or convince others about. i'm sure clinical therapists and academics would have had a field day with the behavior of the customers waiting to get their hands on the coveted two-disc special edition new moon dvd.   when those who missed the first several questions realized they were not going to win a free water bottle, they started trying to figure out where the pallet would come from and angle for position closest to where they though the displays would end up. 

so im sitting back watching all this unfold when i realize stacie had wandered off. i noticed the familiar screeching sound of rolling display racks and see something heading in our general direction.  it didn't take long for everyone to know where they needed to be.  i was fully expecting at least a fist-fight between the ones that absolutely had to have the first one sold. much to my disappointment, all that happened was the cranky sales clerk telling a lady that she need to back off and just be patient, that they had enough for everyone.  apparently the lady in question had snatched four copies off the display before the sales clerk could stop her. (did i mention that under no circumstances were we to leave without four copies of the movie.) by the time the remaining water bottles were given out, the display was behind the counter manned by at least two clerks to assist in rationing out the movies.  the customers were ordered asked to  make a single file line at the register and advised that they would be receiving some kind of free twilight/new moon fan poster or something like that.  thankfully, stacie wasn't interested in the freebies and suggested we go ahead to the front of the store to check out, which was all in all uneventful. we dropped off one of the call-in orders at the hospital and made it home by 1:15.