I remember my dad driving me to target. We got there before the store opened, and we waited inside the car until a line of about five people formed. When the employees unlocked the door everyone walked to the electronics section. There wasn't anyone manning the checkout. So we had to wait until this girl who had no idea what was going on walked up. There were a couple people ahead of me; none of them had a pre-order. She gave each person ahead of me a limited edition, and they had to say no they wanted the regular one. Along with the plastic master chief covered edition, they were also given a strategy guide as bonus for being there early.
It finally comes to my turn, I proudly hand her the pre-order slip (I was only like thirteen). She looks at it, the image of silver limited edition contrasting with the orange of the cardboard slip. Reaching into the box, she pulled out a regular edition and hands it to me. I protested, said I put down five dollars to guarantee that I got a limited edition. She looked at me and said okay, she rung me up and asked for the next customer right after I paid. My young mind was going wild; the fuck was this bitch trying to pull? First she tried to deny me access to the experience that only a select few(tee hee) would get, and then she was trying to shunt me out of a promotional item when they had plenty left. Thankfully my Dad noticed the lack of the strategy guide in my target bag and mentioned it so I didn't have to.
Pretty much the rest of the day was me sneaking glances at the game in my backpack at school. I looked at the weapon and vehicles descriptions in the strategy guide during lunch, but dared not look at the walk through lest I were spoil the story.
