Mall Madness!!!

So I don't know how many of you go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving but I've tried to make it a tradition these past few years. The past few years have been an adventure but they can't compare to the experience that I had today. The outlet mall right off of 88 in Aurora opened at midnight for the first time this year because they were tired of all the stores like Wal*Mart stealing all "their" business. I'm not sure how widely they advertised this was but some how I heard about it and decided I'd like to go, if only for the experience. I had no idea what I was getting into......... After my family's Thanksgiving festivities I ran home, unloaded my car and grabbed all the sale papers! I started my quest for savings at exactly midnight. Everything was going according to "the plan" until I hit it! No I didn't crash into anything in my car. I ran into a wall of stopped traffic (4 miles before the exit for the mall)! So I'm thinking "it can't be because of the mall?" Right?!? Oh contrare. Solid traffic for 4+ miles. Moral of the story is I got to the mall at 1AM (a trip that should've taken half the time). Not only was the highway packed but as you can imagine the parking lot was even more packed!!!! We're talkin' people parking anywhere and everywhere you could imagine! I couldn't (I should say I didn't even try to) get a spot in the parking lot and I didn't want to park in one of the banks or other (non mall) business surrounding the mall so I found a spot on one of the residential streets. I finally got into the mall and this is what I saw.......