Black Friday Has Gone Too Far

I have made it clear in the past that I always make it a point to get my shopping done before Black Friday, because I want no part of Psycho Shopper after that date. I have only once in my lifetime dared to venture out to go shopping on a Black Friday and it wasn't at 5am but it was still enough to keep me from ever doing it again. This day brings out the worst of humanity, but never was this more apparent than this year. This year, Black Friday went from something we could laugh at to something we may need to start putting better control on.

You know the scenes, they get shown on TV every year on Black Friday. I like to think of it as the Running of the White Trash. The doors to (enter big box or toy store here) open at 5am, and you see the pushing and shoving begin... and then the mob reaches the Hot Item of the Year and all hell breaks loose. Piranhas are more well-behaved. But generally nobody ever gets hurt. Certainly nobody ever gets KILLED.

Until this year. When a Wal-Mart on Long Island opened (and I have since been educated about the Long Island Attitude that causes these things), the mob was so vicious that they broke the doors down and trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death. When the police showed up to try to save the guy, the mob wouldn't let them through; getting the big-ticket item that was on sale was too important to let the police save someone's life. When they announced they were closing the store (ya know, the proper and respectful thing to do when someone in your store GETS KILLED), the shoppers were indignant and angry and tried to keep shopping. This whole story just tells you how selfish we have become as people. Nothing else matters but getting the big score for yourself (even if it's really for your kid... but spoiling your kid makes YOU feel good and that's what matters, right?) They're trying to go through the security video footage to find people to hold responsible, but management says it's going to be near impossible to hold anyone accountable.

I say BS. Hold ALL OF THEM accountable. Every single member of that mob should be charged with manslaughter and get the book thrown at them. And then Wal-Mart should make it official corporate policy that they will no longer do early-morning Black Friday opening specials.

Meanwhile on the other coast... An argument broke out in a Toys 'R Us in California in the checkout line. Other shoppers said that the two arguing should go outside, which was quite sensible; after all, there were KIDS in the store. At that point, the girlfriends got involved and next thing you know, the two guys were running down the aisles shooting each other. Both died. So at what point do you NO LONGER CARE THAT THERE ARE KIDS AROUND? Or ANYONE ELSE, for that matter? I don't care that they may have been in rival gangs. Again, SELFISH BEHAVIOR resulting in someone dying. I say throw the book at the girlfriends for their role in this, then... metal detectors? At a Toys 'R Us? Do we really need them? Apparently we do.

And speaking of stupid people with guns... that night, Plaxico Burress, star wide receiver for the New York Giants, hero of last year's Super Bowl, was out at a nightclub. With a gun. Why he felt he needed one I'll never know. I get that pro football players are concerned these days after the tragic deaths of Sean Taylor and Darrent Williams, but that's what BODYGUARDS are for. Anyway, Burress is sitting there in the club and the gun he has stuffed in his pants starts sliding down his leg, he goes to grab for it and... BANG.

He shot himself. In the leg. Luckily it didn't hit his femoral artery... luckily it didn't hit anything important for having kids... although all things considered, maybe the world would be better off if someone like him couldn't reproduce. Yeah I know this had nothing to do with shopping or Black Friday itself, but the timing couldn't have been more impeccable. This close to becoming a Super Bowl AND Darwin Award winner. Oh by the way, it took the Giants 5 days to suspend him for the rest of the season and the NFL has not yet meted out its own punishment... for someone who took an unlicensed gun to a nightclub and shot himself... but Sean Avery makes a remark about his ex-girlfriend that was deemed "improper" and gets suspended by the NHL within HOURS. Which of these is more ridiculous? Anyway, I digress...

So how was MY Black Friday? Well, it involved anger, heavy traffic, and a mall... but not because I was shopping. I was actually on my way home from seeing the relatives, about 2 miles outside of Auburn, when I hit the mother of all traffic backups. A group representing some pissed-off truckers chose last Friday for their protest in Skaneateles; they rumbled through town to protest a state law preventing them from using back roads like the ones that run through Skaneateles. I had no problem with the protest... I had a problem with the protest lining up 30 miles away and choosing to go to Skaneateles by way of a two-lane highway that goes past a mall on BLACK FRIDAY! Suffice to say, there were a lot of pissed-off people on Routes 5 & 20 that day, myself included.

However, let me bring it back to where I started with the quotes of some of the inconvenienced travelers who said that their biggest concern from the whole situation was that they were going to miss the opening specials at Bass Pro Shops. I had to go to work, I had a valid reason to be upset... but these people? Thank goodness they didn't reach for their guns...