Black Friday

It takes a lot to get me to get up early on a holiday, especially one that follows the great feasts of Thanksgiving. I normally snore through through at least half the morning on my days off because I need my beauty sleep. I actually sleep in because I'm lazy, but beauty makes a better excuse. It also helps explain my looks. This morning I got up at 2:30 in the morning, crawled into some warm clothes and drove twenty minutes to an electronics store to wait in line for the biggest consumer spree all year.

The event is Black Friday, a quintessentially American holiday wherein stores offer hugely discounted goods for the first customers in the store. No one really knows why it's called Black Friday, although some have speculated its because the day begins when its still dark or because every store will turn a profit (operate in “the black”). I personally believe the title refers to all the black eyes that are given on this day as millions of angry shoppers rush stores around the nation and hack through lines indiscriminately in search for a deal.

This morning, I wasn't looking for any deals. My brother had heard about a few heavily discounted laptops at BestBuy and wanted to be in line to take advantage of the sale. I went along for the ride, as a curiosity seeker.

At 3:00 A.M., when my brother and I jumped out of our hastily parked car and sprinted toward an already pregnant line, it was apparent that we were a tad late. We took our place and began obediently shivering. Brief interviews with those in front of us revealed that practically everyone was waiting for a laptop as well. My brother expressed the concern that perhaps no laptop would be available by the time he entered the store and that maybe the deal would sell out.

This particular store was so accustomed to Black Friday crowds that it had a carefully regulated system in place to reduce incidental deaths. Instead of opening the doors and letting mayhem ensue, BestBuy gives “tickets” to those who are in the front of the line (one per person) and promises to honor advertised deals only if the customer has a ticket.

Soon after our arrival, the laptop sellout was made official. Maybe they should call Black Friday “gullible day” because we stayed in line anyway, as did many other shoppers whose stated purpose was the same as my brothers.

Let me tell you, it was chilly! A thinking entrepreneur might be able to make a mint off judicious coffee sales or even selling time under a heat lamp. As I shivered in the frigid morning air, I thought that this must be what it was like for the citizens of the old Soviet Union. Unable to control the market by with their purchases, communist Russia's central planning regularly forced its citizens into long lines and shortages made Black Friday-esque events common place.

What I did next, however, would never have been allowed in the Soviet Union.

When the ticket man came by our position in line, I had a quick thought: why not resell the ticket to those further down the line? I would essentially be trading sleep for money; all I had to do was find someone who had enough money to afford the luxury of sawing Zs. I hastily asked the woman next to me, who was equipped with BestBuy's newspaper advertisement, which of the deals had the biggest discount. She answered that it was the 42' LCD HDT, which was being sold for half off its normal $1,000 price. I regurgitated the information to the BestBuy employee and was handed a ticket worth $500. Armed with this, I turned to those who had joined the line after 3:00 and began marketing my ticket. It took about 50 pitches, 45 minutes of coaxing and two handfuls of blue fingers before I ended up selling the ticket. The kind gentleman who bought the ticket made me sign a non-disclosure agreement that doesn't allow me to say what I charged. I will, however, note that I was well compensated.

I didn't learn the real meaning of Black Friday until the store's doors opened and we joined the throng heading toward the laptop computers. Never have I heard such shouting, cursing and swearing! Everywhere people were pushing and shoving, backstabbing and conducting every manner of read meat. The real shock came when I reached for a discounted DVD player and had the item ripped from my hands by someone with a ticket (10% off). We hadn't been in the store 10 minutes when people were already checking out with cartloads of expensive merchandise, some of it damaged by the brawl they had just escaped.

We didn't buy anything and ended up spending two hours in line for naught. Unless of course you factor in the shiny Andrew Jackson sitting in my wallet. Then, it was a productive couple of hours. I returned home and caught some sleep, a bag of frozen peas on my puffy eye.