Pitch Black Friday

We were at Tad's outside Milwaukee for Thanksgiving.  My usual Thanksgiving evening is checking sale papers to see if it is worth shopping early.  All of us were curious about Cabela's offer of a $600 gun or a gift card to the first 800 people, but I was the only one who needed to give it a try.  Tad lives about 15 minutes from Cabela's at the 41/45 split north of Milwaukee.  Store opened at 5 AM.  I arrived at 4:20.  It was "pitch black."  The line was wrapped around the store and I cued up exactly in the middle behind the store.  To keep us occupied they had Santa drive up and down the line in a Christmas tricked out golf cart giving out candy canes.  Then an employee came by with pieces of fudge.  At 10 minutes til 5 an employee with an armed escort came by to give out our envelopes.  I was in the 700-725 range.  Mine was a $5 gift card as was everyone around me although I did hear a big scream about 50 people behind me.  Entering the store was orderly.  I picked up the doorbusters but made the grave error of wandering around for additional shopping.  By the time I got in the check-out lane it snaked around the inside of the store - up and down ever aisle practically.  It took 50  minutes to check out.  I'm sleeping in next year.