Welcome to Black Friday
Well, I have survived the morning of black friday. If you are not familiar with this annual ritual than here is the lowdown. Retailers open up really early on the day after Thanksgiving with really low prices on a couple of items in their store. Problem being is that there are alot of people that want the advertised item at that really low price. Which means that there are near riots at these outlets for the advertised items.
I have to admit that it is kinda fun going out really early in the morning, waiting in line for hours on the of chance that I might be able to get one of these 'sale' items. This year was the first year that my wife didn't have to work on black friday so she accompanied me. Since I am protective of her this might have shown me the carnage that this really is.
Why is it that on black friday we are able to be rude and just plain mean to other people that we meet? To give an example I did black friday at Nebraska Furniture Mart in Kansas City, KS. We got there at 6am (doors open at 7am) and there was already a large mass of people that were there for the deals. When the doors fianally opened it was every person for themselves. Heaven forbid that someone gets to the $50 guitar hero II game before you do. I saw guys that were shoving women out of the way. I got through the mob of people that was surrounding the $10 DVD players and was able to get one. I figured I would be helpful and started grabbing the DVD players off of the pallet and handing them back to folks behind me. I thought that I would be thanked but instead about got the crap beat out of me due to folks that I failed to hand a DVD player.
Luckily my wife just stayed towards the front of the building which was probably the safest. The whole reason that we were there was an advertisement in the newspaper the day before that had a Compaq laptop for $250. What they failed to mention was that they would give out ticket vouchers to the first 200 people that showed up so that there wouldn't be a bunch of people running towards the cheap laptops. What kind of crap is that? Hell, all of the people there have broke every morale human code, might as well give them their just reward.
I guess what it comes down to is I have seen what I am like and I didn't really like it too much. I think that from now on I am just going to look for sales that are going on in different stores and online and buy from them. I will save all of the cage fighting for the experts in that field.
I have to admit that it is kinda fun going out really early in the morning, waiting in line for hours on the of chance that I might be able to get one of these 'sale' items. This year was the first year that my wife didn't have to work on black friday so she accompanied me. Since I am protective of her this might have shown me the carnage that this really is.
Why is it that on black friday we are able to be rude and just plain mean to other people that we meet? To give an example I did black friday at Nebraska Furniture Mart in Kansas City, KS. We got there at 6am (doors open at 7am) and there was already a large mass of people that were there for the deals. When the doors fianally opened it was every person for themselves. Heaven forbid that someone gets to the $50 guitar hero II game before you do. I saw guys that were shoving women out of the way. I got through the mob of people that was surrounding the $10 DVD players and was able to get one. I figured I would be helpful and started grabbing the DVD players off of the pallet and handing them back to folks behind me. I thought that I would be thanked but instead about got the crap beat out of me due to folks that I failed to hand a DVD player.
Luckily my wife just stayed towards the front of the building which was probably the safest. The whole reason that we were there was an advertisement in the newspaper the day before that had a Compaq laptop for $250. What they failed to mention was that they would give out ticket vouchers to the first 200 people that showed up so that there wouldn't be a bunch of people running towards the cheap laptops. What kind of crap is that? Hell, all of the people there have broke every morale human code, might as well give them their just reward.
I guess what it comes down to is I have seen what I am like and I didn't really like it too much. I think that from now on I am just going to look for sales that are going on in different stores and online and buy from them. I will save all of the cage fighting for the experts in that field.