Black Friday: A day of morning

Not being a person inclined to like either mornings or shopping, I frequently make fun of people who get up before the crack of dawn to shop on the day after Thanksgiving -- the busiest shopping day of the year. The scenes of mobs inside stores are what I imagine a post-apocalyptic world to be like -- except that instead of a Thunderdome, we'll have a mall.

But I like to abide by the general principle that you shouldn't knock something until you've tried it. (Exceptions include smoking, doing drugs and burying bodies in shallow graves.) I also figure it's one of the things that a person should experience at least once -- kind of like camping out for tickets to something.

So this year, I decided to join a couple of friends who have a tradition of getting up and hitting the stores at 5 a.m. This is us:


That look sums up exactly how I feel about being at Kohl's at 5 a.m.

But here's how the day broke down:

4:15 a.m.: I wake up after about 3 hours of sleep because I worked the night before.

4:20: I regret not being a coffee drinker.

4:45: I start driving to meet my friends at Kohl's, the first store on their hit list and one of several businesses opening at 5 a.m. that day.

4:50: I drive past Toys "R" Us. The parking lot is totally full. Surrounding parking lots are totally full. There is a line from the front door stretching around the building and out of sight. It is at this moment that I realize I have totally underestimated the phenomenon of Black Friday.

4:55: I pass the Best Buy. Parking lots across the street from Best Buy are full and people are streaming across the eight-lane street in crowds I have only seen the likes of before major sporting events.
I am so in over my head it's not even funny.

5:00: I drive past a Sears and see two people almost get run over because they ran in front of a car in the parking lot on their way into the store. I'm not even five minutes into this shopping excursion and I'm already this close to seeing blood spilled. Not a good sign.

5:05: I'm a little late to Kohl's, so the line that apparently had formed outside the store had dissipated. Using cell phones, my friends and I manage to find each other. We synchronize watches and plan to meet back up in 40 minutes. I am unsure if this is wise -- safety in numbers and all -- but then again, maybe I have a better chance of survival if I'm on my own and able to sneak around unnoticed. I venture out into the void of Kohl's. Alone.

5:40: By this time, I have found a belt (that's reversible -- who knew such things existed?!? It's black or it's brown! How great is that?!), bought Cranium for myself because it was on sale and a couple of other games as gifts for other people. There are two checkout areas -- each has a line that winds halfway around the store. I pick the one that looks marginally shorter and the wait begins.

6:25: After waiting for 45 minutes, I make it to the register. It's there that, while trying to write a check, I discover I don't have my driver's license. In fact, I haven't had it all week. The bar where I often play pool has had it since Monday night when I went there and gave them my license in exchange for a pool table. Apparently, they never gave it back and I never noticed. Oops. I pay by credit card and show her a couple of other things in my wallet with my name on them. It will be a recurring theme during the course of the day.


6:45: With all of our purchases in hand, we load into one car and head to Target. On the way, we pass a McDonald's. The sign makes two significant announcements, but one of them is missing a rather important "f":
"MCRIB IS BACK"
and
"HIRING ALL SHITS"

At Target, we hit the cheap DVDs, but there's not much else of interest. I mostly end up buying stuff like Kleenex that I had planned on buying the next time I was at Target.

From there, I sort of lose track of time, but we head to one of the big malls in the area and I end up buying mostly clothes. As long as I have the help of two female friends, I figure I may as well make use of their fashion expertise. I get a number of nice shirts, among a few other things. They also try to convince me how good-looking a guy is with a nice blazer. That may be the case, but if $250 is the price of bringing sexy back, it can just stay wherever the hell it is now. I do get a fair amount of things on sale, though, and I get a free ski hat that's normally $20. So woohoo for that.

By far, though, the best purchase of the day comes from the sporting goods store (I had admittedly scoped this out the day before in the ads and it's what first got me thinking about going shopping). I get a set of 500 poker chips, with two decks of cards and dice in a nice, metal carrying case.
Normal price: $120
Black Friday price (with coupon): $20

Boo-yah, baby.

From the mall, we head to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Michael's, but those stores hold no interest for me. (I spend most of my time in Michael's making the plastic dinosaurs battle the polar bears and other animals while I wait.)

After that, it's a tasty lunch at a barbecue place and we're done by about 11:30. I head home and grab about an hour and a half of sleep before heading in to work.

Surprisingly, with the exception of Kohl's, the crowds weren't that bad. There was a long line when we first got to Target, but by the time we were ready to check out, it was normal. The mall was busy, but no more than your typical weekend for the most part. I figure that everyone gets geared up for the few stores that open by 5 a.m. and so there are huge crowds and lines at those places early on, but after the rest of the stores open around 7 or so, the masses spread out enough that it's not too big of a deal.

So all in all, I can't say I really understand the joy of getting up at an unnatural hour of the morning to compete with other shoppers as opposed to just waiting a few more hours and then going out, but I wasn't desperate to get some hot item. I can't say the experience was that bad either, though.

That didn't stop me, however, when anyone later in the day asked me how it went, from giving them a haunted look while saying, "You can't believe the things I've seen ... the horrors ... oh, God, the horrors! ... OH THE HUMANITY!!!!" And then breaking into sobs.

Good times.