By Alex Kohut
The fallout from this year’s Black Friday “festivities” has reinforced the reality that Charlie Brown’s gripes over the commercialization of Christmas 40 years ago will continue to go unheard.
People grappled over cheap high-definition televisions, Blu-Ray players and other items.
The most notable aspect of this year’s Black Friday was the death of a New York Wal-Mart employee, who was trampled to death by deal-hunting shoppers.
But for all the criticisms directed at stores for their Black Friday practices, I can attest that it’s not Thunderdome everywhere on that day.
I got my first taste of Black Friday last year, braving the cold and lots of ice all over my car at 4 a.m. so I could snag an attractively priced George Foreman grill from J.C. Penney.
Most of my drive to the mall was spent mentally prepping myself. I braced myself for the sheer madness I was likely to encounter en route to securing possession of the stupid grill I’d had little interest in when it was priced $20 higher.
I passed Kohl’s just before arriving at the mall and noticed the parking was so congested people had taken the initiative to turn the grass into additional parking spots.
I started to wonder if I’d be able to use my Foreman grill with all of the injuries I’d probably get from my donnybrook with some woman over the last grill in the store.
To my surprise, I was in and out of the store with the grill and no bodily injuries 20 minutes later. The store was densely packed, but orderly.
You could sense some excitement in the air, but nothing that suggested a street fight was on the verge of breaking out near the cookware.
There was simply a warped sense of community amongst people who were willing to forego sleep in the pursuit to max out their credit cards.
This year, I opted to visit Birch Run’s Prime Outlets Thanksgiving night to “celebrate” Black Friday.
I was able to visit the stores I wanted, get the things I needed (in addition to many things I certainly did not need) and get back home, all within a few hours.
The stores were fairly crowded, but again, there was no foreboding of hand-to-hand combat over an in-demand item. I observed many people cordially talking to complete strangers, perhaps sharing a chuckle about standing in a long line to buy bed sheets at the Polo outlet store at 1 a.m.
There was an occasional long line, but no violent incidents of any sort. Perhaps the biggest conflict of the night was waiting in line to use one of two family bathrooms, being the only guy in line, and thus being completely unaware of which one I could use.
Understandably, most of the horrific Black Friday incidents you hear about occur at stores where such incredible bargains are offered that patrons don’t mind beating their fellow man to get that HDTV from a brand you and your victim have never heard of.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t countless stores in your area where you can find a good bargain without the risk of being an unwilling participant in a humanized Running of the Bulls.
As a society, we tend to focus on the negative while conveniently overlooking the positives.
The injuries and occasional deaths resulting from Black Friday sales are no doubt unsettling. They speak ill of the stores that offer these deals and make people in general look like animals for such behavior.
Still, this doesn’t mean we have to ignore any benefit that stems from the sales. Perhaps thinking this way just makes me a shameless consumer. As a matter of fact, I definitely am a shameless consumer.
But Black Friday, when done the right way, is an exciting several hours for folks who don’t mind getting out of a warm bed in the middle of the night to buy a discounted George Foreman grill.
No comments:
Post a Comment