What a horrible name for the day after Thanksgiving… leave it to the retailers to take the focus off a day of thankfulness to a day of frantic shopping!
I have never been Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I REFUSE to! I don’t like shopping that much anyway, but my kids… being kids…
…were excited about the middle of the night craziness. As I was heading off to bed about 10:30 Thanksgiving night, Aaron and Philip, ages 21 and 15, were making plans to go to Best Buy at 3:30 am to meet some friends, just for the fun of it. The store would open at 5 am, but they needed to get in line. Of course, Aaron explained, if it worked out, there was a hard drive he had been looking at that was regularly $300, on sale for $100…..and he had a gift card for $50. He and Sarah had driven by at 8:30 and seen a crowd gathered at the front doors. Some of them had tents! (On an asphalt parking lot? Bet that was comfortable.)
The boys were not too excited about having to get up that early and decided it would be far easier just to WAIT up. So they played video games into the night, and went and met their buddies as planned at 3:30. The temperature was a balmy fourteen degrees.
At 4:30 the line stretched all the way down the mall sidewalk and around to the back of the building. Some employees emerged and shouted, “Who’s waiting for TVs?” They handed out vouchers to those folks, good until 9 am. Aaron said that was 80% of the crowd, and they left, probably to get to another store that would be opening soon. The crowd continued to swell though, and at 5 am, the doors were opened, and the madness began. The mob flowed into the store.
Aaron ran and got his hard drive, and was very excited. His two buddies got them too. He then moved as quickly as he could to the checkout line, but the end was already at the back of the store. He estimated he joined the line at 5:04 am, and guessed his wait would be an hour and a half. So he called his little brother to find out where he was.
He was surprised to find that Pip was third in line! Philip hadn’t wanted anything, he was just along for the excitement, but had a hankering for some Junior Mints. So he had immediately run to the checkout and grabbed his $1 candy, and snagged a third in line spot. Aaron said, “Hold on! I’m coming!” It took another five minutes to snake through the crowd, but he made it with a little time to spare.
There was an older man in the crowd who had no plans to shop, but had another agenda. He was carrying a pair of scissors, and yelling, “Cut up your credit cards for free!!” “All you stupid kids out here spending money you don’t have ought to be home in bed.” He approached Aaron and asked if he wanted him to cut up his credit card. Aaron said, “Uh, mine’s a debit card.”
Wonder if the angry prophet role worked….probably not. Not that he’s not got a point, there’s way too many people buying things they can’t afford on credit cards. But I doubt his effectiveness.
It would have been worth something just to see this slice of Americana. Something, but not a night’s sleep! I have some friends who thoroughly enjoy this new holiday tradition. Me, I’m holding out for cyber-Monday!