Woodfield

Northbrook

The mere mention of those two locations can create butterflies in the stomachs of many AFOL's.  This is especially true when these two places are destinations on your list during a LEGO fan event where there's going to be a discount for people attending said event.

During Brickworld I visited the Woodfield LEGO store twice and the Northbrook LEGO store three times.  (Yes, I know I could've said "thrice" instead of "three times," but I just think I sound so snobby when I use that word.)  Every visit was a great experience.  I think the best way for me to catalog my adventures and thoughts from the trips to the LEGO stores would be to mention them chronoligically.

Friday afternoon

We had announced before Brickworld even started that Friday night was going to be the BIG NIGHT at the Northbrook store.  Enjoying an AFOL buying frenzy at a LEGO store at night would be a new experience for me.  I'd been to the Northbrook store plenty of times before, and I had been to a LEGO store for special deals during Brickfest, but those Brickfest deals at Potomac Mills had all been in the morning.

I knew from previous LEGO buying binges that sometimes my eyes are bigger than my hands.  What I mean by that is that I buy so much LEGO in one trip that I have trouble carrying it back to the car.  In fact I brought work gloves with me to the second Brickfest I went to, so that I could wear them on the walk from the LEGO store to the car and the bags wouldn't dig into my hands as bad.  Knowing my nature, I decided that it would be a good idea to make two trips to the Northbrook store on Friday.  A pre-crazy-night trip might also yield opportunities to buy sets &/or Pick-A-Brick (PAB) that the store was running low on, which would cut down on the number of things I would need to make a mad scramble for that night.  Thus insatiable AFOL appetites, curiosity and a cunning early-bird-gets-the-worm mentality led Leah, Alex and I to go to the Northbrook store Friday afternoon.

Now the idea behind an afternoon trip to the Northbrook store was that it would be a quick trip...which made the gridlock traffic on eastbound Lake Cook Road a major pain.  We eventually got there, and after a quick lunch went to the store.  Upon entering the store, we discovered that a few other wily BW attendees had had the same idea that we did.

I was happy to see a big pile of the new Café Corner sets.  (I had to pick one up then, of course, since they'd probably sell out that night despite the healthy stock level.)  An unexpected surprise was lots of black Duplo dragons that were already SUPER cheap!  The store's regular sale was buy 1 Duplo dragon at $3 and get 1 free.  The us BW attendees got an additional 25% off of that.  I also picked up a 10176 King's Castle set that was half off, some of the smaller new Castle sets, a stack of green baseplates and various other odds and ends.

It hadn't taken me too long to choose my purchases, so I had my stuff in bags and paid for in a fairly short amount of time.  Alex and Leah, however, had decided to get PAB tubs.  I am extremely grateful to whoever it was in the LEGO company that thought of implementing the PAB tubs.  For AFOLs such as myself, who often buy 10+ one-liter sized cups in a single trip, the tubs are such a blessing.  The tubs hold the volumetric equivalent of 12 of the large size $13 cups, but they only cost $100 (or $75 for us fortunate few).  Of course filling a tub with pieces from the PAB wall takes a bit more time than buying just sets.  As I watched Leah and Alex fill their tubs, I could hear a nagging voice inside my head telling me that I too wanted—nay needed to fill a tub.  As I gazed into the bins in the PAB wall I could feel the new shiny pieces staring at me with longing in their eyes.  "Buy us now!  Buy us now!  Don't wait 'til tonight, or we'll all be gone!  We want to go home with you David, you and no other."

How could I resist?  I grabbed a PAB tub for the first time and started loading up.  Since I was just starting at this point, it means that I'm now the lagging strand (DNA reference).  Fortunately I'm a pro at speed stacking LEGO parts.  Towards the end of the tub, I just raked some stuff in to fill it without stacking.  The discount we got as BW attendees was tiered, and the 25% discount was the maximum; awarded when we spent $150 or more...in a single transaction.  I had already paid for my other stuff, so my $100 PAB tub wouldn't get me the full discount.  I got a $50 7093 Skeleton Tower to get my total to $150.  Now these dollar amounts I've been spouting off are rounded to the whole dollar.  In reality the PAB tubs are $99.99, and the Skeleton Tower is $49.99.  That made my total $149.98—just 2¢ shy of the max discount.  (I'm sure there's a joke to be made somewhere in there about "my 2¢" but I can't think of one right now.)  Anyway I added a Final Joust set to the pile to get me over the top.

Total for Friday afternoon: $367.55

To be continued...