At 5:30am on a Sunday, all activities are specialized activities. No one is just up and about for the sake of being up and about. I played blackjack at Katastrophes’ and Mr. Pink Eyes’ place last night, rustled Pants Wilder and The Boyf into the car around 3:30am and drove them home; The Boyf started a pot of coffee for me when we arrived at 4am and then trundled off to bed. At 5:10 I took a shower and changed clothes and at 5:30 I was driving down 55 wondering if the other cars were people up early or up late and further wondering which would apply to me.

I hit the Bojangles drive-through and noticed something interesting: every other vehicle in their parking lot was a truck pulling a fishing boat.

Every single one.

A chicken biscuit and a large Diet Coke later, I was noticing that there was no one else on 54 West as I headed towards Target. I pulled up in their parking lot by 5:50 and thus was there just in time for the morning shift folks to start pulling up and the night stockers to start heading out. I sat in the car and played Gameboy and smoked a cigarette and watched the sky start to get purple around the eastern edge.

At 6:00am a guy who looked completely cracked out strolled up to the doors of Target, pulled out an aqua-green Gameboy and sat down on the ground. I got out of my car and walked over near him and did the same. “Oh, I guess you’re #1 in line,” he said. “I saw you parked over there when I came in and wondered if you were here for a Wii.”

“Yep,” I nodded. I’d had coffee and now soda but I was feeling the pull of the long night. “I can’t believe I’m here this early. I went to a party last night and I’ve not slept.”

“Me neither,” he said. “I went to a party and just stayed up.” We chatted briefly, then a friend or roommate or something of his showed up and joined us.

“I don’t want a Wii,” the friend said. “I’m just here for moral support.”

A few minutes after, a middle-aged dumpy guy rolled up in a pick-up. He was there to buy one for his son’s college graduation present. A man and his twelve-year-old daughter showed up shortly after. Then a woman in her 50′s who expressed stunned surprise that she was doing this to get a video game system for her 20-year-old son. Then a guy and a girl in their pajamas. Then a woman who said her boyfriend couldn’t believe she was doing this for a videogame. Then a well-dressed young woman whose boyfriend had clearly only shown up with her because he was going to catch hell if he didn’t. Then more people. Then more.

By 8am, when the manager had handed out numbers and we’d formed a more-or-less orderly line, there were sixteen people there to get a Wii and the store had eighteen Wii’s to sell. “Those last two,” the manager said with a shake of his head, “They’ll be gone in thirty minutes.”

Today, by chance, is the release day for some new model of the Xbox 360, somehow fancier than the normal one. “Anyone here for the Xbox?” the manager asked. One guy put up his hand, then looked around and asked of the rest of us, “Am I the only idiot who thought there’d be a line for the Xbox? Shit.” That got a laugh.

“A friend of mine who works at Best Buy said he thought people might be showing up early for it there,” one of my linemates replied.

On my way out of Target I drove past the Best Buy and there were two people in front of it. They were employees.

I got a Wii. I just finished running all the system updates on it. Now I’m going to try some games. When I got home this morning at 8:30, The Boyf called out as I climbed the stairs to our bedroom. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“Success,” I said, “But now I’d like to do that thing where I lay down and close my eyes.”