Crazy at Kmart

Saturday was Charlie's birthday. He turned 5 and is thrilled about it. We decided not to have a party since we just returned home from Disney. We figured that was enough craziness for one month. So instead, we took him to Kmart. Under normal circumstances, this would be a lame gift. However, on this particular day, the store was having a CARS event. We'd never been to one of these events, but we read that there was a chance to be able to buy a few CARS cars that were not out in stores yet. That made Charlie ecstatic. He talked about it for a month. We didn't know what to expect, but were hoping, for Charlie's sake, that it wasn't some impossible feat.

Not knowing what to expect, we showed up an hour early for the event. Doug, being the smartie that he is, went straight to Customer Service. I'm not sure I would have thought about that right away, but luckily he did. We had to get tickets, 1 per person, which my husband, in another smart move, got 1 for each of us, so 4 tickets in all. Not sure I would have thought about that either. Then they sent us to the Toys Department. So straight to Toys we went. We figured we would be among the first people there. There were these 2 grown men standing there, tickets in hand. No biggie; I figured there would be collectors. But these guys were hardcore. You could tell they didn't like that there were kids there as competition. For the entire hour long wait, they were talking about CARS and Hot Wheels like they were gold. One was worse than the other, who at least one had a kid with him. But they were both salivating once the staff brought out the boxes.

The rules were then explained. They would call a ticket and whoever won got to go up and look through the cases for 5 minutes and could pick any 5 CARS they wanted. Then they would cal another ticket, etc. I heard that they would only be calling 6 tickets and then it would be a free for all. The collectors were almost on top of the tables. They called the first number and this woman won who did have a kid with her, but the kid didn't even go up to the table. She had this list of numbers and was looking for the numbers. She didn't even know their names. This made the collectors really mad! Then another kid won, which made me happy. Then no one claimed the 3rd ticket number. So we were the 4th ticket called and Charlie's face made it so worth while! He was so excited!! He picked out the CARS he wanted. There were others up there that he didn't have, but I convinced him to give his remaining tickets to another kid. It wouldn't be right for us to go up more than once if another kid didn't get to go up at all. And that kid got to go up next! I felt really good that we helped another kid get some of them too. We left after that because the kids were getting antsy. I really wanted to stick around to see those collectors get nothing.

What an interesting "event". Apparently they have these events for Hot Wheels all the time, so the collectors knew what to expect. It was funny because they were actually mad that they had to let kids go first. It probably really chokes their chains that these kids are going to take the CARS home, open the packages, and probably beat them up from playing with them so much. That makes me laugh. We've already seen a bunch of these on EBay selling for much more than we paid. That is just so sad.

That was our experience at a CARS event. It made Charlie's year to be able to get some new CARS that are not even out in stores yet. It made my day to see the collectors get so bent!