Let me preface this by saying that I haven't camped for a pair of shoes since the Black/Metallic V's in Jan. 2007. That said, this was EASILY the craziest release I've ever been a part of.
I first tried online @ NDC with no luck, so I figured I'd head out to the mall for the 5 AM drop. I get there at 1:45ish and there are probably about 50 total people waiting at various mall entrances. So I picked the one w/ the least people and posted up. Time goes on and we see people in the mall walking around with Footlocker bags--dudes outside were HEATED!! It turns out later that they were Footlocker employees coming to get their pairs first. SMH.
Long story short, me and this random cool cat I met up there decided to walk around the mall and find an employee entrance. Sure enough, we found one within 5 minutes and it was wide open. So we dip inside and come out right by Footaction--they're sold out b/c they stayed open until 2 AM to compete w/ City Gear. So we dip down to Footlocker and lay in the cut, hoping to dodge the ONE security guard in the mall. Next thing we know, here comes about 20 dudes doing waaaaaay too much--bruhs were running, yelling, etc. This is 3:30 AM and they don't start selling until 5 AM. So security comes and is on the phone w/ the police and says we have to go. DAMN...they blew up the spot and we all lost.
So we head back outside but I tell dude that we're going back in there in a few minutes b/c the mall officially opens up at 4 AM for mall walkers. So we slide off from the main group of people as quietly as we can, but again about 10 dudes followed us within a few minutes. They all entered the mall downstairs, but we decided to go upstairs. We see people sitting in front of Finishline so we headed there. There were literally 7 people in line.
Meanwhile, there are easily 200 people still waiting outside. So we're good, right?
Then they opened the doors for the folks outside and within seconds the 9 in line at FNL became 200+. About 30 or 40 dudes rushed the front of the line and blatantly cut....damns were not given at all. So its now just a huge mass of people at the gate at FNL--no order to the line at all. Just mad hard legs jockeying for position (pause). Like yo, if you're 6 inches from my face bruh, you're doing a little too much right now. They start letting 2 folks in the store at a time and the first few rounds were people that just rushed the front of the line. At that point, I thought dudes were about to start shooting b/c that's when all the gun talk started lol. Hell, one dude got in there and WENT BACK INTO THE STOCK ROOM HIMSELF AND GRABBED A PAIR! After a long wait and a lot of pushing/shoving and #%!# talking, the manager asked me what size I wore and then let me in....scooped the last size 11. My homie I met in line got pushed way back behind me, so I pointed him out to the manager and told him he was right next to me in line before all the goons rushed the spot. So he let him come in and he scooped the very last 10.5.
At that point, it had cleared out b/c most good sizes were gone, so we diddy-bopped back to the parking lot w/ Concords in hand and dipped.
Morals of the story: I'm too old to camp for shoes. I will never camp for shoes again. Black people--we need to do better....bruhs just show up acting like DAMN FOOLS like its all good to be ig'nant as hell. SMH. Thanks Mike for these overpriced, cheaply made shoes that I still love.
