1. Online shopping!:
For some strange reason people seem to think that Black Friday doesn't expand to the Internetz and that Cyber Monday is the day to go crazy on the clicking. However, Amazon had some pretty sweet deals, days before Black Friday. No lines. No sleeping outside in the cold. No switching your Turkey dinner for burgers and fries in the cold! Crazy, isn't it?
2. "Let's bring the kids!":
Let's not. You think you're feeling crappy? Cold, hungry, sleepy, angry...? Multiply that by 100 and you can have an idea of how your children are feeling. (At the risk of sounding like an old lady....) Camping outside of stores for hours is no place for children! At 4 am on a cold Friday morning they should be tucked in bed, sleeping, and no place else. If you really feel you need your spouse/whatever other to grab all that stuff you want to buy think about this: how much help is a child really going to be dashing through a store? I mean, I saw crazy people with INFANTS!! Yes, BABIES! Kids are not going to be able to run fast through the store. They'll be scared. They'll be confused. And if you take little ones you're going to have to carry them, so you will be a pair of arms shorter. So just don't. Please. Seriously. Don't.
Unless of course you're going to use them to reserve furniture for you. Or to carry around your stuff like tiny human bag carrier. Then of course your thought pattern makes total sense.
I must warn you, however, that most normal people will frown at you for doing this. Because (would you believe it?) using your children for forced labor is illegal in most places.
3. Shopping Carts:
O.k., I'll give an example for this one. Think of an elevated freeway on rush hour. There is only so much space in the street. It's high up in the air. Cars can't really go anywhere else, so once there's a lot of them they fill up all of the space and a traffic jam starts. If you're stuck in the jam, you're stuck. No matter how hard you try you can't really move forward or backwards. Unless you have a ton of money and are willing to destroy everybody's cars, but not if you're an average person.
Now let's go back to the store. Stores have aisles. Which are tiny hallways with limited space (sounds familiar?) So if everybody is trying to push carts through this tiny hallways....what happens? That's right! A cart jam! Which means if you get a cart you'll be stuck. Which means you won't be able to get anywhere close to the stuff you want, no matter how much you scream at the people around you.
I'm not saying carts are bad. I sure wished I had one when I was trying to get through a mob while guarding a box; but zigzagging through carts on foot is much, much, quicker.
My take on this? If you're gonna pick up a bunch of stuff you should have a D.D. Yup, a designated driver. You have ground troops collecting the stuff you want, and a mobile fort picking things up! Now, doesn't that sound more efficient? :D
4. Treat it as it's all one big joke.
Or as if everybody running around had a mental disability and you should not take anything they say personally.
People are insane, by nature. Add discount prices on limited amount of expensive electronics to that and people become rabid beasts. Have you ever tried to reason with a rabid beast? You can't, don't try it. It'll probably bite your arm off. So just remember this as you tread through the department stores trying to fight off random savages that want what you have. You can't take them seriously. They are no longer in control of their own brains. Oh, and be careful not to get bitten. Insanity rabies are very contagious.
So now you know. Next year, if you're going shopping, remember these tips! They could save your life O:<!!
And if you're not....get up early and grab your camera! Black Friday tapes can be priceless! :)
