Black Friday

Black Friday is aptly named. It's a dark day. Human instincts like meanness flow freely. Greed and envy are abundantly clear. If anyone doubts the depravity of man, just take a look at Black Friday.

It's been 19 years since I've worked in retail on Black Friday. Much has changed. And it's been 19 years since I was a shopper on Black Friday. Again, much has changed.

My first Black Friday experience was an early morning trip to Walmart in Russellville. A new Nintendo was out and my boys wanted it. I felt compelled to get it for them so I braved the crowd. Nobody was lined up at the doors waiting for an associate to unleash the crowd. Maybe twenty cars were in the parking lot with drivers casually sitting in their cars (me, too) waiting. Someone saw the associate opening the doors and the rest of us saw that person getting out of her car so we all headed to the entry. No stampede. No pushing. Nobody got hurt.

I walked - not ran - toward the electronics and saw a display of Nintendo neatly stacked at the end of an aisle. I picked on up and headed to the checkout. I was first to checkout. In and out in about five minutes. I didn't understand what the big deal was about Black Friday. I still don't.

My second experience with Black Friday was last night. That would be Black Thursday, right? But it's not right calling Thanksgiving "Black Thursday." Riley wanted to experience what he had seen promoted on TV and Deana had never done it, either - at least not the standing in line when the doors open variety of shopping. We all piled in the bed about 9:30 to get a two-hour nap before the big event. Too much excitement drove us from the bed and we headed to town around 10:30. Our plan was to go to Starbucks and then to Kohl's. Starbucks was open all night and Kohl's was to open at midnight. We left way too early. That was especially evident when it started raining.

We got our coffees and walked through the parking lot toward the stores. Lots of people were standing in line in the rain an hour before Kohl's opened. Target and another store were already open so we went in to get out of the rain. The line to get checked out in Target wrapped around and through and back. We spent about thirty minutes looking around and talking to an friend who had moved away but was back visiting family. By then the line was gone but we weren't buying anything so it didn't matter.

We shopped in the other store and ooh-ed and aah-ed over all the stuff but left without buying anything. The rain had let up so we thought we'd stand in line at Kohl's for the last 10 minutes. We passed the table where a church group was passing out hot chocolate. We passed on the free stuff because we had the great insight to buy Starbucks an hour earlier. The line was longer than it looked and we decided the fire marshall wouldn't let us all in at once and that it might be a long time before we got in the store.

So we went back to Target to get a few things we decided would be perfect gifts. The whole time Riley has been asking for this and that and everything else. We tried to explain that Christmas shopping was what you did for others, not for yourself. He's rebelling against that idea. But the parents prevailed and we got out of there without having to buy him anything.

As we searched for the car - we had parked about an hour and a half ago and had zigzagged quite a bit so this was an adventure, a long adventure - we noticed that the line in front of Kohl's was gone. No fire marshall, apparently. Riley and I continued searching for the car and Deana headed to Kohl's. We rendezvoused in a little while.

Kohl's was buzzing with activity but the check-out lines were short! How cool is that! So we looked at a few things but didn't really find what we wanted. As happens on most shopping trips, we migrated to Riley's stuff and ended up picking him up some clothes. So much for the lesson we tried to teach him earlier. We headed to the check-out but were re-routed to the back aisle to get in the line that wound all the way around the store. Unbelievable turn of events in such a short period of time. We had picked up nothing that was a "door buster" so we put it back and walked out.

Deana just headed out with her mother and sister to finish what we started last night. The shopping wasn't much but we had a good time. Nineteen years has really made a difference in Black Friday. I'm due to go again in 2031...if the nursing home van is making the trip.