Give Me An L ! ! !

In case you don't live close to a Best Buy or Circuit City or any other electronics store, you might not know what I'm getting ready to talk about: tomorrow, Sony will start selling its new PlayStation3 video game system.  And for the past few days, people have been camping out and waiting in line to be the first to buy it.  If you drove by any Best Buy in the United States tonight, chances are you'll see tents, folding chairs and people around the building tonight.  The surprising part of this is that most of the people that are waiting in line for days to buy one of the PS3's won't even use the game - they're going to sell them on eBay. 

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm all for making a profit on something that you sell, and after years of business school, I know all about supply and demand and how the invisible hand of the marketplace brings it all together, but isn't this a bit extreme?  I can't think of anything that would be for sale that I would wait in line a few days to buy; no, not one thing.  Not even if I knew I could gouge and make a big profit. It's just crazy.

I know this shouldn't surprise me, given the fact that there were people that waited in line a year (yes, a year) to see the Star Wars sequels.  But when you consider most of the country has had rain, cold temperatures and even tornados the past few days, I'm still very amazed that people would endure this just to make a few hundred, or if they're extremely lucky, a thousand bucks, on the PS3.  Is the money worth it?  I've talked with over thirty people about this, and took an informal poll just to get their opinion, and they all agreed with me:  it's crazy. A few said that the people waiting in line for hours or days must not have anything better to do.  I have to agree. I know people that took vacation days to go wait in line for the PS3 so they could get one or two and put them on eBay.  I know I'm being hardcore, and these people waiting in line for days in the cold and rain just to buy a video game system really has no affect on me, but I think it's still just crazy.

I thought about this throughout the past few days, and honestly, I can't think of one item that they could sell that I would wait in line for days, in the cold and rain, to buy.  Nothing.  Not one thing.  However, I would wait in line to meet Susan Lucci.