It’s a humbling experience to dash into Kmart at 5 in the morning to pick up a four-pack of games, which included traditional favorites Cooties and Ants in the Pants, for $9.99 and not be able to get it because they were sold out in five minutes.

Or to stand alongside hundreds of other shoppers for 45 minutes at Toys ‘R Us just to save $6 to buy a Play-Doh cookie-maker bonus pack for $9.99 so my toddler daughters, MaggieBeth and Lauren, can pretend to cook like their Oma.

I am what those of you who stay home the Friday after Thanksgiving call “nuts,” as in, “you have got to be nuts for getting up that early to go shopping.”

Many of the hundreds, if not thousands, of fellow nuts who came out Friday said they are finding that saving money is more valuable to them these days than time, and they don’t mind investing the hours to save tens, if not hundreds of dollars.

“I’m going to save about $60 at least,” said Shannon Briggs of Freeport, who was among the first 20 people in line at Wal-Mart in Bangor trying to buy two of 98 available Game Boy Advance Systems.

To fully comprehend the markdown madness, you have to become part of the madness. You strategize and scheme the day before, using newspaper advertisements to research and plot your shopping course of action, and you listen in on conversations for secrets on how to shop more wisely next year.

Steve Smith of Bangor couldn’t help but hear stories about the shopping craziness that comes around once a year. He was surrounded by at least six morning-after-Thanksgiving regulars for almost an hour in a checkout line at Toys ‘R Us.

One lady commented on how many stores and how many lines she had to suffer through one year to find a particular toy for her child.

“This is my first time,” Smith said. “You ladies are scaring me.”

This year, there seemed to be more nuts in the stores than I’ve noticed each of the last four years. In the past, I could get in and out of a store in about 15 minutes. This year, it took up to an hour at one store, more than 30 minutes at three others. And I wasn’t buying much.

Headlights pierced the darkness as cars poured into the Kmart parking lot for the store’s 5 a.m. opening. The lot was full, a first since the company announced in January it was seeking bankruptcy protection. And by 8 a.m., the Bangor Mall was busier than one of its bustling Saturdays.

“It’s awesome,” said Bruce Soper, manager of Bangor Mall. “I’ve never seen such a crowd at this time of the day. Most shoppers – all of them – have bags. Normally this is the tire-kicking day, but not so today.”

The National Retail Federation predicts that total holiday retail sales this year will increase by 4 percent, the weakest increase since 1997. But other surveys conducted across the country and New England indicate that retailers expect this shopping season to be prosperous. Because Thanksgiving Day was later this year, the holiday season is six days shorter than last, with just 26 days remaining until Christmas.

Beth Staples of Bangor said she believes recent layoffs at numerous area companies, coupled with a recession, are affecting the way people shop. They aren’t buying as much, and what they do purchase will be on sale.

“I think people are really checking things out this year, checking prices,” said Staples, who was waiting for the Disney store to open at the Bangor Mall. “With the economy the way it is and people being laid off, people are being wise.”

And they’re finding creative ways to pay for their gifts. For many, that means layaway.

At Wal-Mart, at least 40 shoppers were in line to put hundreds of dollars of merchandise on layaway just 10 minutes after the store opened.

Cheryl Provost of Bangor said she wanted to take advantage of Friday morning’s low prices, yet pay for the items over the next 26 days before Christmas. Another woman said she was putting a computer on layaway but would not be picking it up until next summer.

“With the big ticket items, I think you can put them away for six months,” the unidentified woman said.

At Toys ‘R Us, Lisa Deschamps of St. Albans and Blackstone, Mass., stood in a checkout line with two friends, Brenda Nichols and Jill Paige, both of Millville, Mass., for almost an hour. Paige remarked that “it only took 15 minutes to get our stuff,” and they already had been in a checkout line for 45 minutes. Nichols then joked that her coffee, sitting in her car, probably was frozen.

A short time later, Deschamps was trying to remember her motivation for being in line so long.

“I’m just doing this for the kids,” she said.

I nodded my head in agreement and said to myself, “Me, too.” And this nut can’t wait to pretend to sample my daughters’ Play-Doh cookies.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.