Grabs dem gifts, a shopping horror story
Very early last Friday morning (5 a.m. to be exact) my brother convinced me to take a trek to Best Buy. Ok, to halt you from jumping to any conclusions about my character, I am not the kind of person who drags herself out of bed to go shopping, especially on a day called Black Friday, where typically hundreds, if not thousands, of frenzied shoppers will be ready to fight to the death for limited merchandise. No, I’m not a sale monger.
On this special occasion, however, my brother was able to convince me to tag along only because we were still up from the night before. I wanted to go to bed, but some how my brother’s sad little face persuaded me to go. I didn’t want him to go alone. He’s not from Detroit, he grew up in the sticks, and he might get hurt out there all by himself. I’m the tough big sister. He needed me to take care of him. I’d protect him with my lethal karate chop.
Still too buzzed to drive, we called a cab. It was a dark, quiet morning. No birds, no stars, no inkling of the breaking daylight.
As we pulled up to the mini mall, I could see that the parking lot was no parking lot—it was a refuge camp. Cars zigzagged everywhere. Horns honked at herding pedestrians. People wandered aimlessly waiting for their homing devices to kick in to point them to the Best Buy entrance. I was waiting for a convoy of camels to appear. Thankfully, they stayed home. It must have been too early to bring out the camels.
We decided to save the cabbie from having to inch his way through the mayhem. We got out of the cab halfway through the parking lot.
At that moment, I realized how cold it was outside. The temperature was surely in the single digits. Being half-crocked when I left the house, I didn’t think about grabbing a hat and gloves. This, I noted to myself, was a serious mistake. When we reached the main entrance, we discovered THE LINE. A very long line wrapped around to the back of the building. People were waiting to get in, ten at a time. My only thoughts were, “Can we get the cab back?”
It was a good thing my brother was so dedicated about getting that half-priced digital camera, because I wouldn’t have waited in that line otherwise. It was a good thing my insides were still cozy from booze, because I wouldn’t have waited in that line otherwise. It was a good thing that the dudes standing behind us were chatty and distracted me from my numb hands and ears, because I wouldn’t have waited in that line otherwise.
It took us a half an hour to get into the store. I thought the line outside was ridiculous, but what I saw next blew my mind. MORE LINES. Lines strung people together through every aisle in the store. Want to look at radios? Get in a line. Want to look at printers? Get in a line. Want to finally buy something? Get in another line.
We got in the line for cameras and waited for another half hour or so. As we waited, I watched in disbelief as people buzzed and swarmed through the store like a disturbed hornet’s nest. These were some serious, angry shoppers. They knocked into each other and said, “Excuse you!” They swore profanities when their treasured item was sold out. Shit, fuck, piss, Merry Christmas. They literally dove--and I mean off their feet and into the air--to be the first to reach that last reduced-priced TV. They bribed the shaken, pubescent Best Buy employees to get at the head of the line. I heard one frightened employee say, “What? Do you want to cause a riot?”
Finally, we reached the beginning of the camera line to find out that my brother’s sole motivation for making this trip was gone. No more digital cameras under $300 were in stock. Just like the rest of the poor fools who made this journey and waded through the muck of holiday sneer, my brother was disappointed, and he needed a new purpose. He bought a printer/scanner/fax machine.
It was 7:30 a.m. as we headed home. The sun was up and the streets were starting to percolate with a new round of shoppers. We decided to stop at the coffee shop for breakfast. That was the best part of the trip. Eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes on a slight hangover after being up for 24 straight hours with my little bro. I’ll never go to Best Buy again.
Apparently, shoppers all over the country were lined up in the wee hours on Black Friday to grab those amazing discounts. A line up to 400 people deep was reported outside the Sears store at Twelve Oaks Mall (Novi, Mich). Sears was offering free $10 gift cards to the first few hundred customers. Ten measly dollars! Stand in line at 4:30 a.m. in 6-degree weather to get a $10 gift card! For $50, I bet you couldn’t get a fraction of those people to stand behind a counter, in the middle of the day, in a heated building, to serve food to the homeless.
At Fairlane Town Center Mall (Dearborn, Mich.) the parking lot was already 70 percent full by 6:30 a.m. Try getting half of those people to show up to a job by 6:30 a.m. Not!
Wal-Mart reported that 2 million shoppers showed up at their stores in the first hour after opening at 5 a.m. In one of its Orlando, Florida stores, customers couldn’t keep the holiday peace. A brawl broke out and shoppers flailed at each other. They’d probably gone mad over those $378 HP laptops. Why didn’t Wal-Mart hand out a cocktail of Depakote and Buspar to each customer as they entered the door? Then, they would've all been calm, happy shoppers smiling as they gathered around the Holiday Tree (oh, I mean Xmas Tree, oh I mean Christmas Tree).
Happy holidays. And remember, it's about the giving not the gifting.
posted by tanagrame @ 8:37 AM
6 Comments:
Yes I feel the same way..Dont go shopping on Black friday. Glad you survived!
This country really needs to reprioritize...
That mess of gluttonous consumerism is why I stay well away from all stores during that weekend...that & I'm lazy.
You still have a rather large portion of the holidays to get through, as well as the After Christmas Extravaganzas! Are you gonna make it?
BTW here's a tip, a few years ago, I ended up at the mall at around 7am on a Saturday morning on December 15th or so...long, useless story how I got there...but I ended up doing over half of my Christmas shopping in one hour & didn't wait in one line. It was just me and the mall-walkers. I probably didn't get the best price available throughout the Holiday season, but I dare say that there's a higher price on my dignity & my sanity.
Oh, my. I am so glad you survived! I would never do anything so altruistic as to go shopping on Black Friday to save my brother's butt. No way. You are a saint and I hope Santa is extra-nice to you this year!
Never done it, never tried to go out on this day; it's good to hear everything I was not missing!
Methinks YOU better be getting a new printer/scanner/fax machine for the holidays/X/Christmas!
This is a fantastic story. Too bad it didn't make the front page of the Detroit Free Press. Especially the part about getting people down to food banks, etc. $10??
Tom wanted to go to Walmart because of a flat screen TV deal. I shrugged...said, "If that's what you want for Christmas, put it on your list."--knowing full well I wasn't going to get it for him, but you can't kill the hope this early in the season.
"You don't understand. We have to get there at 5 am. It's a one day thing. They'll all be gone!!!"
So I smacked him hard across his face, and he came to his senses. We slept in that day.
*You and your brother kick ass! The last all nighter I pulled was when I fudged up my HTML. Not as fun.
That's something worth repeating again and again. Thanks, Cagie.
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