Black Friday Redux

Ah…the shopping season.

Oh, I’m not a shopper by any stretch. But, there’s something special about watching a mob lose all rationality and trample the weak and infirm to reach their silly destination. Especially in this season of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.”

I’ve had a long and wonderful experience with Black Friday shopping. Laughing as someone tries to push me is always fun. As is watching someone try to take something out of my arms…breifly.

It’s not hard to do the math when you’re in walmart standing around a pallet of super big deal thingamajigs your wife wants, knowing there are 12, and 30 people standing there.

Normally, I can just grab ours, make sure the newbie guys (because I always seem to be next to first timers) get theirs, then be on my way. However, some lady that leap-frogged me when I bent over to grab mine…(yes, real funny lady) took my hat off in the process, and I had to wait for it to re-appear from the carnage.

3 women had their arms around the last one, on the ground kicking and screaming when my hat popped back out.

Lady 1 arrived shortly after I did at Wal-Mart. Her mistake? She left the Cricut pallet at 3:30 to go get some video games into her cart first. (Wal-Mart let’s you shop for anything not in their ad, but then they price-match whoever’s ad it was on sale at during checkout) She did not make it back to the pallet till 4:30. Moments before the madness began.

Lady 2 arrived at the cricut pallet at 3:40…and mocked all of us because “they just have some of those expressions over on the shelf there, I’ve already got mine.”
She re-emerged at the pallet at 4:20, having discovered hers was not the special package that was on sale.

Lady 3 is the one that chose to leap-frog me. Don’t know what time they arrived.

It would have been amusing to see which one ended up with the thing, but we had places to go.

See, I’ve never “missed out” on the primary thing we are after on Black Friday by following one simple tenat:

Be kind and sociable.

At the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of stuff. Talk to the people waiting in line before hand. Chances are pretty high you’ll be waiting in line with them at the checkout as well. Ask what they’re going after, and help them get it if it’s near yours/on the way to yours. Very unlikely you’re after the same stuff. Even when you are, there’s nothing wrong with making sure they get what they’re after. A year ago, I struck a deal with several folks. I went after gameboys, while one group went for DVD players and another grabbed a cart for me. So, instead of the 1 gameboy I needed, I grabbed 8, then traded gameboys for the things I really needed.

Be kind to the employees. It’s a terrible day for them. Smile, be nice, say thank you.

Try to protect the littler ones. Kids, babies, women. Do your best to protect them from the jerks shoving things around.

Karma pays off here, at the end. Upset Karma, and you might end up on the floor with 2 others wrestling over the last of something. And then, were the injuries truly worth it, even if you were the one to “win”?