Black Friday - a commentary on what is wrong with us!!!

It seems to me that more and more every year we hear stories of the melee they happens on Black Friday. My favorite one this year, not because I enjoyed reading it but because the sadness that it represents, was a woman looking for an Xbox who sprayed the folks waiting in line at Wal-Mart waiting with her with pepper spray. All so she could get in there and get a freaking video game at a discounted price. I cannot even fit this inside of my head, what was the thought process here? OK, I know they only have 12 of these games and since there are 13 people ahead of me I am going to take them out, not figuratively, literally. I am going to get some industrial strength pepper spray and hose down these unsuspecting idiots. I am positive that this is the way that will get me that game. Did she not think past her short term goals to determine the causal effect of that action?? I am not optimistic that even while sitting in the jail cell that she understood the complete F’ing stupidity of her actions, so she could play a video game. REALLY – you idiot!! One of the victims of this dumbasses Wal-Mart Xbox rampage had to go to the hospital.

Then I read, as if the pepper spray incident weren’t bad enough, shoppers in California had to contend with something even more frightening: an actual shooting. A man was found shot and bleeding in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in the Bay Area just before 2 a.m. The man and his family had apparently been the victim of an attempted mugging, as “several” people with guns tried to take the family’s purchases by force. Meanwhile, police in Fayetteville, N.C., reported gunshots fired near the food court of a local mall at 2 a.m., but no injuries were reported.

And then there were the fights– after all, what Black Friday would be complete without the fights? In Kissimmee, Fla., two men fought at a jewelry counter at a Wal-Mart, and one of them had to be dragged away by the police, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Other customers captured videos of shouting matches in line, skirmishes in stores and showdowns between shoppers and protestors affiliated with Occupy Wall Street and put them up on YouTube.

Sadly, Black Friday violence is nothing new, though the actual number of injuries this year seems higher. In 2010, one shopper in California was arrested for carrying a handgun and ammunition to stores and another was arrested for threatening to shoot those in line, though neither actually hurt other customers. Then, of course, there was the infamous stampede at a New York Wal-Mart on Black Friday three years ago that resulted in the death of one employee.

This level of insanity begs the question – what the fuck?? How is that our world has become so obsessed with the material possessions that are made overseas that we do this. I myself have never been and have no plans to ever go shopping on black Friday. There is nothing for sale in any store that would cause me to pitch a damn tent on the sidewalk in front of the store – NOTHING!! The few bucks we might save on that TV or game console is not worth the risk of being freaking pepper sprayed or shot in the freaking parking lot so someone can relieve me of my recent possessions, not happening!

I researched a bit on black Friday and found that the term has been used since 1966 when it was coined in Philadelphia, PA. By 1975 the term was spreading outside the Philly area, although I do not ever remember hearing that term until at least the 90’s. it seems so crazy now that Wal-Mart is starting the day before, not just at 4 in the morning, or even midnight. I still think the after Christmas sales are better. Not quite as much craziness and they are dumping stock from the inventory so they don’t have to spend the money to count it or to have it sitting on the shelves.

I myself am looking for a new TV and I think I am going to wait until after Christmas to buy it. You can be sure that I will be packing the big .45 to compete with those who are armed and I will be carrying some pepper spray and a long wire Taser for the unarmed. So there you have it, consider that a warning, if you see me – DO NOT get in my way, that damn TV is mine!!!