Waiting in line for furniture?
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By Jim Turner
Posted at 09:52 AM on October 16, 2007
Is there really a point to waiting outside a big box retail store for two days and nights to get your hands on matching end tables or other furnishings?
There were people excited about Wisconsin-based Kohl's coming to Jensen Beach a few weeks ago. But nobody was saying, "I thought it would be fun one day to tell my kids that I sat out for two days to get a couch," as one Fort Lauderdale woman said about the pending Florida arrival of Ikea.
A few months ago, when Target first opened in Tradition and Sam's Club did the same along U.S. 1 in Port St. Lucie, the local cops were called in to help direct traffic, but they didn't have to bring in four off-duty Florida Highway Patrol troopers to manually control stoplights along major roads near the stores. Nor was a trolley service set up to transport overflow parking.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for shiny, new fangled things, the latest technology, certain authors or musicians, and for saving a buck or more. But I really don't understand our compulsion to be the first in line.
We see it every year, with sales drawing hundreds to get up in the wee hours for Black Thursday sales.
The words inside Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows don't change if you bought the book at midnight or leisurely picked up the book after a good night sleep.
Okay, maybe for Duke-Carolina basketball tickets I can see camping out, but in the Triangle those lines are more festive at times than the actual games.
This is about furniture. Yes, it's more affordable furniture than others who display their wears twice a year at the High Point Furniture Market.
Yet Ikea for some reason is making people act like the couch taters who recently camped out across the Treasure Coast and country for the iPhone and the Nintendo Wii.
Actually, that wasn't fair, those kids, in their South Park shirts and with caches of Pringles, were no where as giddy as those I've encountered the past couple of days in Stuart and Port St. Lucie over the prospect of the Swedish retailer having two locations within only two hours of the Treasure Coast.
That's right, if you miss the grand opening Wednesday in Sunrise, there will be another next month in Orlando. And Ikea has on its Website that they will allow people to start waiting outside the Central Florida store at 8 a.m. Nov. 12, two days before the store opens.
It's like the royals have decreed this to be fresh bread day. Only these people are not wanting in the destitute sense, for the food inside is literally Swedish pancakes and meatballs with lingonberries.
Posted at 09:52 AM on October 16, 2007
Is there really a point to waiting outside a big box retail store for two days and nights to get your hands on matching end tables or other furnishings?
There were people excited about Wisconsin-based Kohl's coming to Jensen Beach a few weeks ago. But nobody was saying, "I thought it would be fun one day to tell my kids that I sat out for two days to get a couch," as one Fort Lauderdale woman said about the pending Florida arrival of Ikea.
A few months ago, when Target first opened in Tradition and Sam's Club did the same along U.S. 1 in Port St. Lucie, the local cops were called in to help direct traffic, but they didn't have to bring in four off-duty Florida Highway Patrol troopers to manually control stoplights along major roads near the stores. Nor was a trolley service set up to transport overflow parking.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for shiny, new fangled things, the latest technology, certain authors or musicians, and for saving a buck or more. But I really don't understand our compulsion to be the first in line.
We see it every year, with sales drawing hundreds to get up in the wee hours for Black Thursday sales.
The words inside Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows don't change if you bought the book at midnight or leisurely picked up the book after a good night sleep.
Okay, maybe for Duke-Carolina basketball tickets I can see camping out, but in the Triangle those lines are more festive at times than the actual games.
This is about furniture. Yes, it's more affordable furniture than others who display their wears twice a year at the High Point Furniture Market.
Yet Ikea for some reason is making people act like the couch taters who recently camped out across the Treasure Coast and country for the iPhone and the Nintendo Wii.
Actually, that wasn't fair, those kids, in their South Park shirts and with caches of Pringles, were no where as giddy as those I've encountered the past couple of days in Stuart and Port St. Lucie over the prospect of the Swedish retailer having two locations within only two hours of the Treasure Coast.
That's right, if you miss the grand opening Wednesday in Sunrise, there will be another next month in Orlando. And Ikea has on its Website that they will allow people to start waiting outside the Central Florida store at 8 a.m. Nov. 12, two days before the store opens.
It's like the royals have decreed this to be fresh bread day. Only these people are not wanting in the destitute sense, for the food inside is literally Swedish pancakes and meatballs with lingonberries.
