By Dan Mackie
Among the rules I live by is this: If I’m going to wait in a long line I want World Series tickets, or the functional equivalent. On Black Friday 2009 I broke the rule.
The world goes crazy on Black Friday, the super shopping day that seems perfect for insomniacs and hysterics. Stores open at midnight, 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m., and, for the slug-a-beds, 6 a.m., with deals, deals, deals. Did I say deals?
Store fliers make grand promises. Doors will be busted. Prices will plunge. Much like the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, there’s a certain run-for-your-life energy. Nothing like sharp horns on a seriously annoyed bull to make you focus. Same thing with $500 off a TV that’s so enormous you might have to tear down a wall to make it fit. (Manufacturer’s disclaimer: avoid load-bearing walls if possible.)
I am both fascinated and repulsed by Black Friday. The idea of standing in a line of 400 people to nab a Tickle Me Elmo with GPS and Belly Cam makes me feel slightly ill. And yet, if a bargain is big enough …
A couple of decades ago we joined the Worldwide Cabbage Patch Frenzy, a brief epoch when adults felt that children’s lives would be ruined if they didn’t have a puffy-faced, ugly little doll under the tree. Upper Valley adults drove to Canada to find them, or paid Cabbage Patch scalpers hundreds of dollars. Others spent vacation days in lines. I don’t remember how we got our little cabbages, but I’m sure it involved degrading behaviors.
My kids pronounced them The Best Toy Ever, and promised to cherish them always, or for a couple of weeks, whichever came first. Eventually one Cabby was defaced with permanent magic marker. (Our home crime investigation unit determined that sibling rivalry may have been a factor.)
Since then I’ve avoided toy hysteria, now long behind us as an issue. I’ve been tempted by the Black Friday hype, though, mostly because I torment myself by perusing fliers for high-tech electronics — my weakness. I begin by browsing, admitting little interest. Much as trout lazily peruse fishermen’s lures, I suppose. One minute you’re just looking, the next you’re sizzling in a pan.
I made a couple of unsuccessful Black Friday forays in years past. Both times the crowds and mayhem at our super mammoth electronics store repulsed me. (I understand that the organization has gotten better, with coupons and such, but I may never see that first-hand.) I gave up after I stood in a purchase line for awhile, anxious that I might be in the wrong line. I asked a dazed wandering sales associate if there were any of my items left. He said he didn’t know. No one knew.
Forget the $198 laptops. Those only go to the sorts of people who would have led the charge at Gettysburg into roaring rifles, bayonets and canon smoke. “Attention shoppers, we have limited quantities,’’ is an announcement that sends them into an adrenalin fury, ready to jump over barricades, greeters, etc.
Bottom line: I have retreated from the Route 12A battle zone in the dawn’s early light, despondent about capitalism and humanity. I felt as respected as cattle in a chute. Despite the bargains, I felt like a sucker.
This year, Black Friday fever started on Thanksgiving Day, when members of my extended family pulled out newspaper fliers to discuss strategies and opportunities. One niece was ready to shop all night.
Even my wife Dede, who is a shopper, but not an early morning shopper, got into the spirit. Comforters and quilts priced at $29.99 put her over the edge, but she was willing to go only so far. None of that 4 a.m. stuff. “If you’re up at 6, wake me up,’’ she said.
And so I did. “Would you drive me to the store?’’ she asked. ‘Umm, OK,’’ I answered.
So there I was in a rather large mostly-clothing chain store that has sales so often no one knows what the real prices are. I would like to say that we charged directly to the back of the store like a running back who would not be denied, but it was more like the end of that famous college football game when the Stanford Marching Band came out onto the field too early and the gridiron was a mad maze of tailbacks and tubas.
Nevertheless, we found the comforters and quilts, with the aid of a store employee who actually helped. We bought a couple of each, allegedly saving hundreds, a calculation that seems suspect. I did not feel any richer than when I came in.
We stood in the checkout line for about an hour, chatting with a sunny young woman who laughed at every funny remark, and a cheery couple in front of her who’d been to other stores already. Dede kept checking to see if I was getting grouchy, but I never did. The fact is, I didn’t care whether we got our specials or not, which made all the difference. I was in a perfect state of non-attachment.
We drove home, looking forward to the inevitable Black Friday nap. I knew it would be priceless, and it was.
The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.