Next week, those of us in the US will celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a time to spend with family, watch parades, football, and bad TV, and eat until we're stuffed like the bird we consumed. It's also the day before the biggest and craziest shopping day of the year, which is of course known as "Black Friday". You've seen these folks on TV, right? The ones pepper-spraying fellow shoppers just to further their chances at an XBox which is only twenty or thirty dollars cheaper than it normally sells for? How about the folks who pull hair and shove people just to have the opportunity to buy the "Whatever-We're-Doing-To-Elmo-This-Year" Doll? (By the way, those might be pretty darn cheap anyway, considering recent events.)
Have you ever experienced this insanity? I normally would never dream of being amongst that claustrophobic chaos, but C and I did do this once. It was right after we bought our house, and we needed a ladder. The big-box home improvement store near our place offered a $70 ladder for $19.95. We reluctantly dragged our dead asses out of bed even earlier than I normally get up for work every morning (which is early), went to the home-improvement store right when it opened, and were in and out within fifteen minutes. I think we got lucky; apparently, ladders weren't highly in demand, but we didn't want to chance it. I'm glad we did, because it has come in quite handy! Afterwards, we grabbed a celebratory breakfast sandwich from the BK next door. As we waited in the drive-thru, we marveled at the overflowing parking lots of the Target and Meijer stores across the street. (Meijer is like a Walmart type of store; it's primarily located in the mid-west.) We hurried home, ate breakfast, and went back to bed. The end.
So, yeah, Black Friday isn't my thing. I'm happy that online Black Friday specials are being offered more these days; for someone like me who doesn't love large crowds, this is the way to go. But for some, the adrenaline rush of being in the middle of a mob scene, and the thrill of grasping that certain sought-after item in their grubby little hands cannot be matched. If you're one of those people, I will leave you to that, and hopefully I don't see you on TV being knocked on your ass by an unruly gang of elderly women. Good luck!
One more thing: A lot of stores are having Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day. What's up with that?! I know it gets earlier and earlier each year, but opening the store on Thanksgiving Day? Come on. Are retailers worried that people won't come out on Friday? Are they simply being greedy? Or maybe they wanted to catch a bunch of overstuffed shoppers who are under the influence of tryptophan to lessen the chance of violence? (Let's face it, people. We're all kind of dragging after that big meal, right? Please say it's not just me.) Either way, I think it's wrong. Chances are, the employees don't want to have to leave their families to go to work and be confronted with insane customers, particularly after being with their insane family all day. (Again, maybe that's just me with the 'insane' thing.) Plus, don't most Black Friday shoppers take Thanksgiving afternoon to compare the ads and plot out where they're going to go and what they're going to buy the next morning? It doesn't make sense to me.
Thanksgiving Day is about family, people. Believe me, I'm always looking to get away from the family after a few hours of interrogation and The Family Channel, but I'd never consider going shopping. Perhaps the retailers thought all people needed time away from their crazy relatives, who knows. I just think "Black Friday" shouldn't come so early and should be held on the correct day; it's called "Black Friday", not "Black Thanksgiving Evening".
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