***UPDATE As of Wednesday morning, Target.com is back, and there are a few Missoni items left. Get clicking.

Target’s Missoni designer collection touched down this morning, was sold out at many Valley stores within an hour, and even crashed Target.com. As of 3:20 Arizona time, Target’s website was still down.

The Twitter faction is furious. The Missoni make-up brushes were nowhere to be found.  One Valley woman went to four stores before noon.

I joined my fellow Missoni lunatics in line at 7:45 a.m. outside the Phoenix Spectrum Target, where women were talking about “Christmas morning” and how much they loved the Missoni luggage they spotted on TV.

When the doors opened at 8 a.m., the crowd ran inside. The women’s clothing racks were emptied within 10 minutes. I was number 15 in line and got the last of the Missoni bowls.

The beach cruisers went immediately (and two to my girlfriends, who were the envy of the store). The luggage caused a stampede when Target clerks restocked it after 20 minutes. My co-worker Amy nabbed the last black and white suitcase — and the matching travel bag — and walked around with a dazed grin.

And then, about 30 minutes in, the crazed shoppers became friends: we traded and bartered for sought-after items outside dressing rooms and in check-out lines.

“Do you want this?” “Is this your size?” “Did you see this shirt?” “Oh, you have to get that dress, it looks amazing.”

There was even a rush on the little girls’ department when one woman emerged in a striped cardigan to oohs and ahhs and shared her secret: “GIRLS! Size XL! It fits!”

(Dear woman: thank you, from us all.)

It was true fashion goodwill, in contrast to the true annoyance of others who slept in 15 minutes and missed out. If you’re on that list, try eBay, where resellers are already hawking Missoni goodies at double and triple the cost.

One suspected eBay buyer piling women’s flats into his cart in my Target this morning got the business from his fellow shoppers for being piggy.

“You’re a man,” I overheard a shopper say. “Come ON.”

I had a good Missoni day, but I stalked those stripes with dedication: set my alarm for 3:30 a.m. to shop online, woke up every hour just to make sure, and lucked out to get my order in before the crash. (This is sounding quite dire, like a stock market report.) And I hit two Valley stores before 9:30 a.m.

My friend Angela and I were shameless in our lust, even asking fellow shoppers for their cast-offs.We made friends with the fitting room clerks, who told us that this is the nuttiest shopper stampede they’ve ever seen, and then gave us the stuff other women didn’t want. We lurked around the go-back piles. We divided, and conquered, and made loop after loop of the store, trolling for cast-aways, employing every strategem we learned shopping Last Chance.

And then we thanked the shopping karma Gods by sharing cast-offs of our own.

So, I’m a bit tired and a lot nuts. But I have black and white dishes and little girls’ sweater that fits like a dream, so I’ll wear my lunacy with pride.

HOW TO GET SOME OF YOUR OWN: Besides eBay, try the stores tonight, when shoppers who bought with abandon may have returned a few items. Also, follow @TargetStyle on Twitter — the official Target fashionista feed said today that some stores will restock Missoni in the next few days and weeks. Calling the stores first is a good idea — that’s how Angela and I found bike number two. (And thank you, dear bike whisperer at Paradise Valley Tarjay.)

Lastly: call your friends in Iowa/Indiana/Kansas/Missouri. Twitterites in those locales are reporting still-full shelves.

(A friend’s Missoni bike, parked temporarily chez moi, which is a kind of gorgeous torture.)

Top photo: Apartment Therapy