Family Camps Out at Best Buy, Gets Free iPads

Remember when families used to go camping in the national parks? That's so ten years ago. These days, family camping is all about getting the best deals for Black Friday. In fact, two familes in Florida are so determined to save this year that they're already camping out.

The Davenport family from St. Peterburg, Fla., pitched their tent on the sidewalk in front of the Tyrone Banks Best Buy last Wednesday at 10AM. "We've always been second, third and fourth and down the line," Lorie Davenport tells WTSP News. "We're tired of not being first and we figured we've put in six years, we want to be first."

After checking the nation's 1,300 Best Buy locations, the retailer found that Lorie Davenport and longtime friend Tina Thain weren't just the first Black Friday campers in St. Petersburg, or even in Florida -- they were the first in line in the nation.

In honor of the family's committment to shopping insanity getting a great deal, Best Buy has dubbed the Davenports and Thains the official "First Families of Black Friday." More importantly, the electronics retailer awarded both women with brand-spanking new iPads. "Oh my gosh, my boss is just going to die," Thain told WTSP as she reportedly cradled her prize.

Wait, Tina Thain has a job? So how is she able to camp at Best Buy for over a week? Turns out that Thain and Davenport have help: Their incredible achievement in annals of shop-a-holic culture is actually a group effort -- a family effort to be precise.

Both families are working in shifts to hold their coveted place in the line. It's part of an annual family tradition that reportedly began seven years ago with a crusade to scoop up some outstanding Black Friday deals on MP3 players. They were hooked.

"I'm honored it's Best Buy they want to be at," Best Buy GM Scott Dowen told WTSP. "There's a lot of competition out there and we know it."

If you've got your sights set on unseating the nation's "First Family," you'd better pencil in a full two weeks of scenic parking lot camping -- because the bar has been set and set high. In the immortal words of the Ricky Bobby, if you're not first, you're last. And you certainly won't get a free iPad.

Will you be camping out for Black Friday deals? Astrologer Susan Miller suggests you skip it -- this Friday is not an auspicious time to shop.