There are a great many things that I have deemed to be completely useless. Paris Hilton, an unattractive socialite who's claim to fame is being a slut, and didn't even have the brains to get paid for being that way. Daylights, the most useless feature ever added to a car, because during the day, we've all got access to a light that will never blow out in the lifetime of our species: the sun. Valentine's Day, a competition between women about whose man will get them the most crap that says things that men should be saying without being prompted by a corporate marketing blitz. And while these things are undoubtedly at the top of a list of useless things, I can say that I have discovered the latest addition to this illustrious list just the other day: Black Friday.
It's not a celebration. It's not even a fake celebration. It's just the day when stores put more stuff on sale than any other day of the year, perfectly timed to coincide with the excuse that we all use to buy more junk and they use to sell more junk: Christmas.
It wasn't my first Black Friday, but I sincerely believe it will be my last. Mainly because I don't ever again want to be involved in what is the saddest display of greed and materialism that Americans engage in as a group, every single year.
Most people wouldn't think that this day is such a bad thing. Most people think Black Friday is a good thing, because you can get so much stuff for cheap. I suppose that a decent argument can be made for that, but I also suppose that the argument gets thrown to the winds when people start camping outside of electronics stores as early as 7 PM the night before, just to be first in line when the doors open at 5 AM.
It's not like something brand new is coming out, like the PlayStation 3 or the Nintendo Wii, or a new Star Wars movie. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's sad to camp outside of a store for any length of time just to spend $600 for the same overpriced machine that will be in stores continuously for the next five years. I don't care if there was only 400,000 of them in the country. There will be more in March. No, these people participated in the same sadness, except it was for stuff that was in the store yesterday. It just wasn't 40% off.
So when five in the morning hits, that 40% makes people run to the back of the store at top speed, without a care for the safety of the people standing in front of them, who are likely to be run over by their greed. Who cares if they work at the store? I gotta gets my sake cups and a new cuisinart! Oh, yeah, dude…what's a cuisinart? Who cares! It's 40% off!
And two hours later, these people are still wandering around the store, looking for stuff to buy, with a shopping part full of appliances and computer parts that no reasonable person could afford. The reasonable people that can afford that stuff buy the high quality versions from stores that they don't have in your neighborhood.
Because these people have been up all night, they're a little cranky. And crankiness doesn't mix well with greed. That's when people start fighting with each other over the last wireless router that's only $16.49. And watching two slobs make even bigger jackasses out of themselves is probably the only thing that makes the day worthwhile. Except for, possibly, watching them get arrested. Or maybe even the look of realization that comes when they look up three shelves to see the wireless router that's only three dollars more, yet is twice as fast and doesn't have the reputation for being a piece of crap that the one they were just fighting over does.
Eventually, the early morning rush gives way to the crowd of people who have enough of a life that they don't camp outside, yet still wake up hours earlier than they normally would have just so they can rush down to the store, desperate to find something to buy that's cheap. They might have one or two things in mind, but mostly these people wander aimlessly and keep looking in the sale paper for something that might catch their eyes. They're not as sad as someone who would wake up their kids to come look at stuff that they MIGHT buy, but still pretty sad, nonetheless.
Lastly, these people give way to the people who have rushed in from wherever they came from looking to get that one item that they couldn't afford under normal circumstances, but they're going to try to get it today because, well…they're practically giving it away, right? The only thing is, they didn't consider the following things: The store opened at 5 AM and it's now 8:30 PM. Between now and then, there were well over a thousand people in this store looking for the same item. These are the people that get upset because they also didn't consider this little tidbit: The iPod is extremely popular. They really thought that no one else had considered buying one. I'd like for these people to know that when they're walking away, pissed because the store ONLY had 1,200 of them, the people who work in the store are laughing at them for showing up 13 and a half hours too late. Because these are the people who have a chance at being saved from stupid situations like this, I have prepared the following remarks to help drill home the point that they should do something different next time:
"What did you think was going to happen? You knew when you got in the car to get here that it was going to be gone. So now you're reduced to wandering around the store, like everyone else, looking for something cheap to buy, except your reason for doing so is because you don't want to feel like you wasted your gas to drive to
I want people in this category to feel extra shame so they'll stop doing it.
Am I understanding of anyone involved in this? Yes. The people who are working in those stores, who have to listen to you complain about the service, even though you bowled over people to get inside the store, or the people who have to help you understand which is the better product, because you don't even understand the technology you're buying. What people don't realize is that, while it's is the worker's job to do these things, on this day, everything is magnified by 1000. They'll probably have to work longer hours, too. Some stores don't even pay overtime. Would you want to put up with your ass? Try doing it for $8.00 an hour for 18 straight hours.
I guess what really bothers me the most about this day is that it epitomizes what's wrong with our society. Do we have that much disposable income where now, we just have to buy things because they're a reduced price? Are we that bored where bargain hunting is an actual hobby and one that causes us to waste money on things we don't need or even want? What does that say about our society where people will stay up all night or camp out in the street just for the right to contribute to what's annually the biggest shopping day of the year? Most people weren't even buying Christmas gifts. Did they really need a whole case of tube socks, 12 packs of blank CDs, 4 300G hard drives, 3 packs of diapers, even though they have no babies, and a GPS system? Only because it was "a good deal?"
Or maybe the plan was just to sell it on eBay. I guess the joke's on me.
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