Friday, November 25, 2011

It looks like bedlam out there...

Desperate to apply jumper cables to the nipples of our moribund economy, the media has been giving the annual retail orgy known as "Black Friday" an inordinate amount of hype.

With news cameras stationed at the front of local big box retail emporia, they were hopin' for a trampling and probably not above tripping a slower member of the herd to get one. (Note To Self: Next year run a pool on how many people get trampled for the sake of a cheap big screen on Black Friday morn in our fair land.)

At one point they interviewed one intrepid shopper whose naugahyde Members Only jacket differed in color but not in texture nor albedo from her broad swathe of exposed decolletage as she hyperventilated "We're here to fight! It's a war! For good prices!" into the camera, punctuated by the occasional "WHOOOOO!" from her daughter, vibrating and bouncing beside her in a cloud of dried mascara flecks.

I don't care if they are handing out dollar bills in the back of Best Buy in great big Ben Bernanke-sized sacks, you couldn't print enough of them to induce me to set foot into the middle of that seething mass of aberrant humanity. *shudder* I'm not driving within a mile of a mall between now and New Year's if I can help it. Santa Tam's doing all her Yuletide shopping at stores whose names end in ".com".

22 comments:

Homer said...

I have long lamented that for me the "shopping season" is 10 months long, and that early November gets devoted to purchasing sufficient supplies to avoid retail outlets of any variety, save the small local deli, until mid-January.

Thanks goodness for those brown trucks....

Bob said...

News reports say that they're pepper-spraying each other in Los Angeles, and the shoppers in Fayetteville, NC, are shooting at each other.

When Black Friday becomes more important than Thanksgiving, something is fundamentally wrong.

Tam said...

Pass me that fiddle, Nero.

Mikael said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5iugfTiIk¨

Still as current as ever.

Stikjock said...

We went for a scenic drive last night at midnight, having never bothered with the hype before. The line to our local Best Buy was about 400 yards long, and the store was open, meaning they'd already let in the maximum occupancy number. Target was so over filled that the "happy shoppers" had to park in the nearby school. On a totally unrelated note, the single nudie bar on our route back to the house was also full. Wonder what they had for black Friday sales?

Living in Babylon said...

With my most bodacious wife and her family, all of whom are bargain hunters of the first order, the operation is planned after Thanksgiving dinner with military precision. They are in and out before most people start stirring, fanning out collectively to hit good spots with lists of what to buy for each other.

Round table strategy sessions at our mock bugouts are not nearly as coordinated or efficient. I must admit the bong sitting in the middle of the table at those events might have something to do with that.

Heroditus Huxley said...

Since we're putting together fruit and goodie baskets for family and friends this year...we can't shop for everything online.

We'll do it all at Sam's Club.

Ken said...

Considering the numbers involved, I'm beginning to wonder whether "aberrant" really applies.

Mossyrock said...

I'm sitting here on Black Friday morning, eating hashbrowns with diced bacon and onions. I can't DO that at Bon Target. Besides, the last two times I have had armed social interaction with our Nation's misguided yutes was while Christmas shopping....both times, at Wal-Mart...go figure. Nope...ALL shopping will be online this year.

Anonymous said...

filth fighting over garbage, it started at midnight out here...

azmountaintroll said...

All my friends are getting ammo for Christmas. End of problem.

Lewis said...

Our civic religion is dead. We've become all about the benjamins, to use a slang phrase from a decade or so back. It's not that money is evil, but the love of money, aye there's the rub, if the rub is the root of all evil. On the one hand, hey, I suppose it's good. We've made some real progress in terms of the marginalized and the different, but good gravy, at what a cost.

Damn kids (grumble grumble). In my day we had (grumble grumble). Get off my lawn (grumble grumble).

the pawnbroker said...

"When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna dig myself a hole.
Gonna lay down in it 'til
I satisfy my soul."

Maybe feed some kangaroos. Beats an aberrant mass any day.

Skip said...

I guess we are just lazy.
We mail checks for Christmas.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Unfortunately, this time of year does mean that, instead of standing in line at the Dept. of Snail Mail outlet for 10 minutes while one Grandma counts out her pennies for postage while shipping some cookies to her Grandkids in Duluth, I'll have to wait while 20 of them do it.

Brad K. said...

I worked at our local (small town, OK) Walmart Supercenter from 5pm 5o 10:10 pm. Much of the stuff started at 10pm last night.

At 5pm yesterday the store was nearly a ghost town, except for more associates than I usually see. About 8 pm I was stationed in front of a couple of pallets, one of a pair of dolls for $10, the other a belt-fed Nerf dart gun. There were more customers in the store, but not a really busy day. More people were shopping and getting out than were scouting. I had two folks camped out for the dolls by 8:15. A third "camper" took her place at 8:45.

By 10 o'clock the people were pretty numerous, filling the aisles newly cleared for the event. I saw a couple of brazen women making a deal about getting their own way, otherwise there was only polite and quiet shopping, five or six people abreast.

The parking lot was full; I didn't see anyone blocking traffic lanes, and shoppers were leaving even as I was.

This morning I got to Staples at 8 am, hit Hastings, hit TSC (tractor supply, for Da Yooper fans, love that "Rusty Chevrolet" Christmas song), then got back to Walmart at 9 am. I found both of the sale DVD's I was interested in.

The streets and stores were all very light on shoppers, this morning. Staples, Hastings -- TSC was the busiest, and none claimed to have been busier earlier in the day.

I am more worried that some of the stores won't last the rest of Obama's administration.

Anonymous said...

I had to brave it this morning around 9am to get a new printer for my sister. I was tasked with fixing her unsecured wireless and her printer that prints but doesnt scan or copy. I realized the printer was a lost cause last night. Roads weren't real busy (south WA near Portland) and most of the crowds had already cleared out of office depot I guess. Got a new printer on sale no less.

Wholesale sports (canadian owned 2nd rate cabelas) was somewhat busy but they didn't have the mag loader I wanted. In total it took me 45 minutes. Almost bought a shooter's ridge 25rnd mag for my marlin 795 but held off. The news showed last night the local outlet stores being swamped. People were lining up parked on the side of the interstate before the midnight opening.

Tim said...

The sentence with "naugahyde" "albedo" and "decolletage" was a triumph. Love the writing here.

kishnevi said...

speaking as someone who actually works in retail, and therefore had to be in work before 4AM to greet the little mob who had been lined up outside our door, I just want to say thank you for being your usual reasonable self. Every year I look at these people and wonder how crazy can they be--to be up before God gets up just to get a...Christmas ornament in the case of our store. The cheap prices we offer can be obtained on line or until after lunch time, so you don't need to actually be there before normal human wake times. But these people line up...

Of course, the full stupidity of the human race can be encountered while working in retail.

I tell my friends to get me gift cards from Amazon. I don't shop unless I have to at this time of the year.

But in a true sign of the corruption of the human mind, Black Friday specials were being byped at...AmazonUK
But not, curiously at Amazon.ca

kishnevi said...

being byped==being hyped.

And since I do that all the time, I can't even blame waking up at 2AM to work a 12 shift for that

Michael Z. Williamson said...

I noted that half the people in that scrum are below average. One of my readers pointed out that many above-average people stay home, so in fact, MOST of the people out there are below average, in all regards.

Angel said...

The shopping crowds are just terribleeee D: God, it was like a herd of starving wolves ready to pounce their prey of clearance products. lol