First of all, it should be called "Just Make More Money" Friday. Just to avoid the lines, aggravation, the very need to have to get up on the day after Thanksgiving to go bargain shopping at 3 a.m. means you need to change your life in a dramatic fashion. Get another job, a better job, start a business or, hell, just rob a bank. It's not worth it, I tell you!
First of all, I'm not a shopper. Well, at least a go-to-the-store shopper. I'll shop online any day, but go to the store? No! I hate crowds, especially crowds all hopped up on consumerism angst. I'm the type of guy who only goes shopping if there's an emergency, like I just lost my best Red Sox baseball cap and it's Saturday, my day off from combing my hair. But even if I catch myself going to a store, in getting out of the car I will repetitively bang my shin against the door while mumbling in a just-stay-home mantra "You only need food and water to survive, all shopping is evil" as I check for remnants of my homebody sanity.
So I'm obviously a newbie to Black Friday shopping, but I get up at 5 a.m. anyway. Actually, my wife wakes me up mumbling something that sounds like "Honey, don't you want to go buy that . . . thing?" "That thing"? What the hell is she talking about, "thing"? I say to myself as my eyes roll in my sleepy and dumbfounded head.
I get up out of mere obedience to the male survivalist's "Yes, dear" philosophy. But as I get into my car after repeating "thing?" to myself several dozen times, it dawns on me that I'm going to the store to purchase software that will save me 50%! FIFTY PERCENT! I tell ya, yeah! . . . or at least I think, "yeah!" Well, see.
So there I am, driving into the parking lot of Staples through the thick fog of the dark morn. As I pull up to the store what to my eyes should appear? Dozens of shoppers lined up on the sidewalk like raindeer caught in the headlights.
I stumbled into line and set up for my wait. As I shivered in the early morning fog, I overhear one Black Friday expert talking about getting to a store at 3:30 in the a.m. Why he was there so early is beyond me, my understanding enhanced some two hours later as I exit the store.
As I wait, I also hear of strategies used by various stores for Black Friday crowd control. I was wondering why I saw the line chug along at a fifteen to twenty people clip. I didn't realize what was going on until I rounded the corner of the Staples building to see an employee counting potential customers into the store. He'd count fifteen and the line would stop. I watched intently as he made his maddening count, for what's worse than not only being at a store but so early and with "people coming out of my ears," as the counting employee so eloquently stated.
He was now getting close. When he got to me, I was ready to bolt into the
store when he said, "You go in the next batch." I felt like so much
cookie dough waiting to be stuffed into the oven.
While I sat at my pole position, I watched the counter as he manned the door, opening and closing it manually letting people in and out, checking receipts on the out-goers. As the counter-checker opened the door to let a few purchasers go free, he was harassed by one pre-line waiter and then another asking for "holiday special" flyers. The first flyer seeker was gruffly greeted by the employee with, "You can get one when you come inside." The customer's ears shot back and he looked at me with a bemused smile, but he stood his ground. After the employee checked out a few more people, eventually he gave in and handed out the flyers, but you can understand how this may be difficult with so many people coming out of your ears.
Finally, I get into the store. Now it's about 6:45 in the a.m. I walk to the software section past piles of people, most stacked at the back near the discount table, and through the line to the cashier some thirty people strong. When I get to the software section, all I see are boxes marked, yes, you guessed it, "Display only."
I asked an employee, "What does that mean?" He told me that I'd have to ask for the software I wanted at the counter, but they were probably all gone because they only had eight to begin with. Eight! Hell, I'm not a store and I've got more than eight of most things in my house. OK, maybe not, but this is a store running a Black Friday special. They should have more than eight.
But I get in line thinking, well, how may people would want the software
I'm looking for? So I wait. And I wait. And I wait. Then it dawns on me. It's Friday after Thanksgiving at 6:45 in the morning and I'm not only awake but standing in line, in a crowd, in a store, in a mall, on one of the best sleeping days of the year. I should be taking full advantage of my tryptophan induced comatose state, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping with gusto and verve. But no! I'm in the cold, in the dark, in the store with hundreds of bargain hunters, shouters, pushers, all hopped up on consumerism angst.
So I left. Yes, with only twenty-five people and a short forty-five minute wait remaining. I left, like the failed shopper I have always been. But then I thought to myself, I have the money, what the hell am I doing here under such duress simply to save a few bucks?
So I get home, the house is warm and everyone's still fast asleep as I sit at the computer and order my copy of the software I so desperately need for "immediate download." Yes, an on-line Black Friday special that ends up only costing me $20 more than the in-store version that never existed for me in the first place.
Yes, people, stay home on Black Friday, please! . . . at all costs.
