Midnight Sale Frenzy Reinforces Disdain for Shopping Amidst Crowds

Let’s face it: I don’t get out of bed before 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. unless I have an obligation or appointment. In fact, I always tell my students when they complain about something they “don’t like,” that they will always encounter requirements in life they “don’t like.” For instance, although I love teaching, I don’t like getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning to get to my job. I’d much prefer the day to begin later and end later.

So it comes as no surprise to those who know me that I have absolutely no desire to wake up at 4:00 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving to venture to a retail store to tussle with Yahoos in order to obtain some gadget that has been marked down a dollar or two in order to lure unsuspecting customers into the store to buy regularly priced—or sometimes even overpriced—merchandise. My allusive reference causes me to wonder what Jonathan Swift, who coined the term “Yahoo,” might have thought of such a proposition.

First, I don’t like crowds because being in a crowd of people seems surreal to me. I sometimes feel faint. I can’t focus too well. Second, crowds of people can be a hotbed of veritable germs. Imagine all of those little bacterial cells potentially floating around in the air, waiting to land on a different subject and commence new life. Finally, some people’s standards of hygiene don’t exactly match mine. I don’t mean to sound obsessive compulsive on this one—although in earnest I am—but I don’t think daily hygiene is too much for which to ask. If one has ten bucks to spend on a toaster or seventy bucks on a blu-ray player, then he or she certainly must be able to afford the scant amount required to purchase a bar of soap and pay the paltry water bill required for regular ablution.

The history and phenomenon of post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping, however, do interest me as an observer. The tradition began in the 1960s, and the day came to be known as Black Friday because it signaled the kickoff of the Christmas season when retailers could expect to move from the color red, to indicate loss, to black, which symbolized a profit, in their accounting records.

Of course, the advent of the Internet and online shopping may have curtailed some of the Black Friday frenzy, but, if one believes the advertising hype, the tradition remains.

Although I avoided the event, as I usually do, I got a little taste of it the night before. My brother, who arrived at Mom’s Thursday afternoon preceding our Thanksgiving meal Friday, wanted to go to Wal-Mart for a sale slated to begin at one minute after midnight. The lure? A small crock pot he had seen in a circular priced to sell for $3.

I relented, agreeing to go mainly for camaraderie, but I was also the least bit curious to see what this shopping spectacle might look like.

Immediately after entering the store, I witnessed that shoppers clogging the aisle between the groceries and house wares had created an impasse. The main attraction I saw through the scads of people on that aisle was rows of DVDs priced at $5. But isn’t the sale of particular DVDs for such a price at Wal-Mart a normal practice? And who needs DVDs when there’s Netflix?

Finally, we made our way to the back of the store and located the $3 crock pots. Simply because the deal seemed too convenient to pass up, I snagged a crock pot, along with a food chopper, which likewise cost me $3. No, I’m not at all adept in the kitchen or even fond of working there, but who knows when such a gadget might come in handy?

I made it home and crawled in bed just before 2:00 a.m., which suited me much more than getting up at 4:00 a.m. Still, I hadn’t enjoyed battling frenetic shoppers pushing carts through masses of people like tanks ramming through enemy lines. Yes, they were polite and apologized after running into someone, but nevertheless.

The next morning I slept in. I put away my crock pot and food chopper. I prepared to go eat the Thanksgiving meal with my family, making a pact with myself never to go out into such a crowd of people again, more thankful than ever for the convenience of online shopping.