What is Carpe Deal'em?
Carpe Deal'em is a Black Friday Riser family tradition. This year (2008) was the fourth official Carpe Deal'em in the Riser household. Black Friday has always been a day of deals for the Riser family, but not until 2004 did the Riser men take control of the Black Friday madness - they discovered a better way.
Carpe Deal'em is an activity for the Riser family men. They hunt for the deals on Black Friday and bring back the booty to the rest of the family. The usual course of events consists of 3 Riser men. The driver, the line stander, and the hunter/gatherer. The driver drops the line stander and the hunter/gather off at the store's door. The line stander automatically finds his place in the long Black Friday lines. The hunter/gatherer finds all the requested items from the circulars and brings them to the line stander. They checkout, and are picked up back at the door by the driver. On to the next adventure. The described teamwork allows for the men to hit many stores very quickly.
What do the Riser ladies do?
Carpe Deal'em is an activity for the Riser family men. They hunt for the deals on Black Friday and bring back the booty to the rest of the family. The usual course of events consists of 3 Riser men. The driver, the line stander, and the hunter/gatherer. The driver drops the line stander and the hunter/gather off at the store's door. The line stander automatically finds his place in the long Black Friday lines. The hunter/gatherer finds all the requested items from the circulars and brings them to the line stander. They checkout, and are picked up back at the door by the driver. On to the next adventure. The described teamwork allows for the men to hit many stores very quickly.
What do the Riser ladies do?
The ladies' mission prior to Carpe Deal'em is to dive into the circulars (ads) on Thanksgiving night. They search through each ad and find all the door buster deals, as well as other sales that they want the men to conquer. At the end of Thanksgiving night, each circular has a piece of paper stuck within it that has each desired item listed with a description and the sale price advertised. These circulars and lists are what the men take on their mission.
Why is it named Carpe Deal'em?
Why is it named Carpe Deal'em?
Carpe Deal'em means "Seize the Deal".
Even before Carpe Deal'em was officially established, it has always been a Riser family tradition to participate in Black Friday, looking for the best deals possible. Steve Riser Sr. used to wake up his son, Steve JR and say, "Time to get up J.R.... For the Glory of the Deal". Therefore, a common slogan used within Carpe Deal'em is that: For the Glory of the Deal.
Who is Riser?
Kelly suggested I let everyone know, who is Riser. I keep talking about the Riser Family, but have given little background to how we know them. The Riser family are friends of ours. Steve Riser is a good buddy of ours that lives in Memphis. His family lives north of Kelly's in Kentucky. We have the luxury of traveling to KY for everything Thanksgiving with Steve Riser. He drives, we ride. He drops us off in Lexington on the way to Villa Hills. It's a pretty sweet deal, really. The Riser family are great people (Steve's family) that have often opened their home to us on multiple occasions.
With all of the above background in mind.... welcome to Carpe Deal'em 2008.
This year, the Riser family tradition (Steve Sr, Steve Jr, and son-in-law/brother-in-law Scotty B) invited my hubby to participate in Carpe Deal'em. The Riser's live about an hour or so north of Lexington (where we go to see Kelly's family during Thanksgiving each year), so we made a trip up to Villa Hills to be a part of the action. We traveled Thanksgiving evening and arrived at the Riser house in time to eat dinner and search through the circulars. I quickly learned the ropes as Summer (Steve's younger sister & Scott's wife) taught me some of the tricks of the trade. It was neat to see all the sales, and to think that the boys could actually get to a store in time to catch many of the door busters and special sales. Their was an excitement in the air. I made my list, thinking of all the presents we had left to buy for Christmas, and talked Kelly through my desired items.
Looking through the circulars that had been marked, the guys made a list of stores they needed to visit, as well as the suggested order to the stops. We said goodnight about 10pm or so, and all headed to bed.
3am arrived and the men of Carpe Deal'em were up and moving, matching T-shirts were sported, and they were out the door by 3:30am! The ladies did not see them until 6 hours later, when they came home with the booty. We went outside, greeted their arrival and looked at the treasure they brought.
Looking through the circulars that had been marked, the guys made a list of stores they needed to visit, as well as the suggested order to the stops. We said goodnight about 10pm or so, and all headed to bed.
3am arrived and the men of Carpe Deal'em were up and moving, matching T-shirts were sported, and they were out the door by 3:30am! The ladies did not see them until 6 hours later, when they came home with the booty. We went outside, greeted their arrival and looked at the treasure they brought.
The stats from Carpe Deal'em:
18 stops in 6 hours
16 stores, and 2 eating (Speedway for coffee & Panera Bread later for breakfast)
That means the guys hit 18 locations on Black Friday with an average time of 20 minutes per store, which INCLUDED travel time!
They tore it up! With Kelly in tow, there was a driver (Steve Sr), a line stander, and two hunters/gatherers.
Here are some photos of the experience:
They tore it up! With Kelly in tow, there was a driver (Steve Sr), a line stander, and two hunters/gatherers.
Here are some photos of the experience:
Every year a new slogan is created for that year. This year the slogan read: "Tell me how my deal taste!" The first official deal of the Carpe Deal'em experience was these shirts... see how Deal'em is spelled incorrectly? They got the shirts for free because of it.
This is a picture of the stash... the booty... the treasure... see the Carpe Deal'em deals and the proud and tired men that found them!
"We got so many deals we may have to change the name to carpe steal em'"
Kelly McGugan's Quote following this year's adventure:
"Deals were bought and made. Carpe' Deal Em was a success"
5 comments:
i see riser is still wearing his grandma jeans.
Don't ever say that Riser brought back "booty" again.
We know that's not true
Sounds like fun! I love the quotes, they are hilarious! Haha
Good Job Heather. I loved the experience from your point of view put into writing. We are looking forward to another Carpe Deal'em next year. Have any ideas on the 2009 motto.
Oh my gosh...this is so stinkin funny. Almost makes me want to rethink my detest of Black Friday.
Cheers!
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