Dude, bro. Dude, check it out. Bro, after a crazy late night of rippin’ parties all over B-town, I hauled my sweet one over to Burton for the big snowboard sale. Dude, it was off the chain. There were, like, so many people there, bro. It was nuts. So flippin’ sweet, though. So many freakin’ awesome deals. Epic, bro. I got a sick ride for only $200 and a pair of bindings for $100. This winter, I’m going to be shreddin’ the gnar hardcore, no doubt. Can’t wait for the pow!
Ok, I’m about to be sick. Too much dude-ing and entirely too much bro-ing. That’s how I spent my morning today surrounded by dudes and bros and I don’t really need to replay it for the entire blog post. I’m sure you all (all meaning the residents of cellblock D at the Chittenden County Jail. Holla!) don’t want to be reading that nonsense either.
As you might know, today marked the start of the bedlam-fest known as the Burton Snowboards annual summer sale. The sale runs until Sunday and like a good reporter, I assigned myself to cover it. Also, I needed a new snowboard. And I was feeling a little bereft of bros in my life. Doors opened at 7 a.m. and by the time I dragged my weary bones down to Burton HQ, there were already about 87,000 people waiting in line. Many had been there overnight, sitting in lawn chairs, tossing back Natty Lites and chasing them with a drag or two of the old herb superb. Most of the folks arrived in the wee hours of the dawn to nab a spot in line. Not like it mattered much where people were in line because when the doors opened, the gates of hell broke loose and every teenage boy with matted hair and bad acne made his way to the front, knocking over all the over-20 oldsters in the process.
I rolled up at about 6:45 a.m., got a wicked parking space and zipped up to the front of the line because that’s what you get to do when you’re a “member of the media.” As soon as I pushed my way to the front, I realized what an incredibly ill-conceived idea that had been. My biggest fear in life, apart from spending the rest of it in jail or outer space, is being smothered/trampled to death. I’m just worried what I would look like when people found me. The last thing I want is to have the life stomped out of me by 1,000 teen boys with scraggly facial hair and a mouthful of braces. So to escape the teeming horde, I climbed up onto a Dumpster. I nearly split my pants in the process.
From that vantage point, I could see the whole frenzied crowd. There were at least 1,000 people waiting in a line that stretched practically to Shelburne. Or just to Red Rocks Park. Dude, it was nuts. From my Dumpster throne, I could survey my subjects as waved adoringly at me. Or were they giving me the finger? I couldn’t tell. At any rate, they were ready to go.
The Burton dude-bros did count down on the mega-phone as the assembled crowd gnashed its collective teeth and pawed at the ground. It was go time. And for me that meant nearly falling in the Dumpster. The kids (and some very unlucky parents) pushed their way through the doors and into the warehouse. You’d think the warehouse was full of naked girls or free tricked out Hummers at the rate they were going. Once inside the warehouse, I could see what all the hubbub was about. There was Burton gear as far as the eye could see. And for just a brief nanosecond, everything was neat and tidy. Then the crowd started ripping things to shreds.
Folks tried on jackets and then dumped them on the floor. Snowboard boots were left in heaps on the floor. Small mittens were thrown in the XL box. Ahhhhh! These situations make me immediately confused and my brain powers down. The sheer pandemonium of all that stuff makes me break out in hives. That’s why I can’t shop at Marshall’s, TJ Maxx or any second-hand store.
There’s nothing much to report after I got in the building. I did some expert reporting, bought a board in the process and nearly wet my pants when a girl from Shelburne told me her saga of losing not one, but both of her shoes on the way into the sale. Luckily for her, Burton had plenty of replacement shoes.
If you want to see what the whole mess looked like, check out my video from the day.
You know what sucks more than riding a chair lift by yourself? Riding a chair lift with four foul-mouthed, flatulent ‘tweens who want nothing more than for you to take your pathetic ass and hurl it to the snowy depth below. But this is my life. Or at least my life for the next two weeks, until I wrap up my 20/20 Challenge. Yes, I’m nearly finished. Thank the sweet bearded Lord in heaven for that.
