[Buff]

I got a PS2 on launch day. I worked at Canadian Tire and we had 100s of people who wanted a PS2 but we only got 25 for the launch. So they were taking names and putting the names into a draw. My name was not drawn but there was a lady who was so upset that she wasn't allowed to buy more than one system for her 5 kids, and was upset that she had to wait until launch day to be able to buy it. She caused a huge stink.

Anyway, we had the draw and my name was not drawn, but that aforementioned lady was drawn. She wasn't able to attend the drawing, as were a few others, so the general manager took the names of the people who couldn't make it but got their names drawn and he called them. I was somewhat disappointed that I would have to wait to play the PS2, yet prepared to accept that possibility. Later that day I got paged to come up to the office... uh oh, what did I do? The GM asks me if I think I've been good. To which I replied "as far as I know". Then he said "Come see me at the end of your shift, I'm not calling that lady, you can buy the PS2 but nobody can know that you got one since you are staff, not even other staff". So he and I timed it so that I was at the auto-center cashier when nobody else was around to see it, but the one cashier (who also conveniently got to buy one). I also bought NHL 2001 and played for hours that night. The GM was razzing me the next day about the sleep bags under my eyes.

Edit: The cool part was I had a tonne of staff purchases that I had to have written up (you get 10% discount that you write up and claim at a later date). And I had a tonne of Canadian Tire money, so for a PS2, NHL2001, and a memory card I only payed about $30 out of my wallet.