Black Friday Shines Light

Staying up all night in the freezing cold, petite grandmothers wrestling, and lines lasting blocks and blocks down the roads. It is safe to say that there is nothing else like Black Friday.

Recently, I broke down and forfeited my will to the “black fridayer’s” I decided that it was time to find out what Black Friday was really about. After all, we hear so many negatives about Black Friday, yet millions of people pour into the exhaustingly long lines every thanksgiving. As my first Black Friday approached, I headed towards Circuit City at 9:00 PM on the night of thanksgiving. The premature line had only produced about a hundred people and I was satisfied with my spot. Accompanied by 5 of my friends, we were more than prepared to spend our night in the cold. Our cars were overflowing with blankets and lawn chairs. We had a laptop computer, a football, and of course all of our Ipod’s. After several hours of football and surfing the Internet, we started talking to people around us.

It might have been the fact that it was 3.00 AM and everyone was loopy, but the majority of the freezing people were very friendly. About an hour before the doors opened everyone stood up; while half up the people held their spot in line, the others raced toward their cars to secure their lawn chairs and other belonging. I found this to be one of the most amusing parts of the night, because a lot of people were convinced that if they sped up and pushed people closer and closer together that they might move up in line, but they didn’t. Next came the vouchers, oh, the wonderful vouchers. I quickly learned that the voucher was a major part of the gameplan. A voucher is basically a ticket that says that you can purchase a certain item. They do this so that the people at the front of the line can make sure that they get the item they waited so long in line for. The vouchers are usually only for the important items such as the incredibly cheap laptops, cameras, or televisions.

Obtaining the vouchers, was a completely different story. I witnessed people selling their spot in line so that the buyer of the spot could snag a voucher. Seeing as their was no orderly way to hand out the vouchers because everyone was shoved together, one of the employees of circuit city distributed the vouchers by saying “ we got the lap top voucher, who wants the lap top voucher”? Of course this caused for a huge commotion and many screaming people lunging for the vouchers. Undoubtedly this led to some mad moms and dads, and some words were exchanged.

As the doors opened I ran for my 3.99 DVD’s, determined to be the first one to plunge into the neat stacks of movies. I quickly found 6 movies that I wanted and a DVD box set, all for a fraction of a price. As I was marveling at the money I had saved, I looked up and saw a woman holding a PS3; with a wide grin and a credit card she left with the video game system. I’m assuming that the console was a gift for her child, and that made me think. Sure some people like myself are here to pick up some cheap stuff, but many are here to buy that special gift. For those people, the fighting, the cold, and hours and hours of waiting is all worth it; just so they can see their children smile ear to ear on Christmas morning.