Levi's leviathan mess

A naive friend of mine wanted to wait in line for the Levi's Wear What Fits event held early this morning. Being the veteran shopper, I told her that if she really wanted one she would have to stand in line at least 3 hours beforehand, expect to see a lot of line cutting, and chaos would inevitably ensue. Her reply "It's OK, I'll get there by 8:30am and it should be fine. It's a work day, how bad can it be?". I knew she completely underestimated the situation so, being the good friend, I decided to join her since I knew Mizbies and NYC can be a dangerous concoction.

When I met my friend at 8:50, she had already waited 30 mins. I deduced that there were about 300 people in front of her. Since I wasn't planning to participate in the event, I stood by my friend and we started chatting. Within a span of 5 mins the line cutting began. Towards the front, two ladies (mother and daughter) successfully cut the snaking line while a lady was booted from cutting just behind us by a keen-eyed staff member. Speaking of staff members, other than this one, the rest seemed totally inept. And as we all know, ineptitude always leads to mayhem.

By 9:30, we had moved a total of 10 feet...a snail would have gotten further. Thank god the weather was a least nice because I could sense the growing anxiety and anger brewing amongst the crowd. By 11:30, my friend's jolly naive optimism had seen the chaotic underbelly of freebie events and had turn pitch black pessimistic. She was about to throw in the towel when staff members started handing out colored wristbands and leaflets informing them to come back later today at a pre-determined time. My friend was disappointed that she got the late late time of 6pm, but I pointed out the silver lining that at least she got one.

Updated: At 6:00pm, my friend was able to get her pants. She told me that the chaos had passed and that everything was organized and staffs were friendly.