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Black
Friday. Ever wonder where that name came
from? Does it mean that’s the day the
stores move their red sales figures into the black? Or could it mean that you’ll come away form
the stores black and blue from all the elbowing to get those bargain prices—but
they left off the blue?
Wikipedia
had this to say: The day's name
originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy
and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day
after Thanksgiving. Use of the term started before 1966 and began to see
broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation
began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the point at which
retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black".
I’m trying to figure out why they would give that name to
traffic, do all people in Philly drive black cars?
I know one thing I avoid the stores from Black Friday
onward. I don’t like crowds, I mean
seriously some of these people don’t need to worry about that deal on a laptop,
but worry about the sale on deodorant in isle 5.
On the few occasions I have been to a store on Black Friday I
did not come away impressed with humanity.
The last time I went was in 2006, no that’s wrong it was in 2005. One retailer had laptops on sale, and I
needed one. I had this thing about
needing to feel something, reach out and touch it before I bought it. Black Friday can give new meaning to reach
out and touch someone. Just ask the
people who got sprayed with pepper spray last year so some woman could get that
new Xbox for her kids.
That year I went back to the electronics department, it
wasn’t very crowded, but there were none of the laptops on the shelf. A small
group of people were standing by the stock room door. One man said the clerk had gone back to get
more. So I stood there with everyone
else waiting, One woman near the front
had two carts and nothing in either one.
She stood in front of those double doors like she was manning a police
barricade and no one else was getting through with ID and registration. Or at least a cart with a battering ram.
The clerk comes out with a flat utility cart (you know the
ones you see sitting in the store and so want to have someone push you around
the store on while you giggle like an idiot?) and the woman in front grabs a
laptop off the stack. Her kids also grab
one each, so now she has four. The clerk
is explaining to her that the limit is one per adult shopper. Another shopped manages to break through her
cart barrier and she screams at him: I was here first, put that back! I’m
telling.
I’m telling? Really?
Who is she going to tell? Do they
have laptop police in the store, or maybe her mom works there?
Next another shopped manages to get one and the woman starts
to threaten the clerk. Now two things
here, one: she has four already, make that six, as her kids have continued to
add boxes to her carts, and two IS SHE NUTS?
She’s already been told she can’t have more than one.
Suffice to say I had no interest in this little play of human
stupidity.
I get in line ot check out, I’ve had enough be banged by
carts by insane people who are sure I am going for that one item they
wanted. Unless it’s aspirin for the
headache I now have, they have no worries.
I get to the front and low and behold I am in line behind the
laptop hog. She has at least 8 of them.
I hear her tell her oldest kid, wait until we get these listed on e-bay
we are going to make a killing. I kept looking at those boxes as she put them
on the belt thinking, all I wanted was one, one for me to use, to have and to
hold, not make money on.
I am startled out thoughts of my one true love named Dell,
but the woman’s loud voice as she went to war with the cashier: I don’t care
what your stupid add says I can have as many as I want, that’s the law, you
can’t stop me.
Law? Is there a law
that says you can buy as much of whatever you want even when the store clearly
stated one per adult shopper? I tried
several searches involving quantity and shopping in the search criteria,
apparently the internet isn’t up on any such law, but I did get quite a few
returns for places selling Viagra. I
think google was trying to tell me something, make love not war on Black
Friday.
Security comes out and they confront the woman. I say to the cashier, I’d really like one of
those laptops, do I have to wait for them to be taken back to electronics
before I can get one? The words were no sooner out of my mouth when there is a
loud crash as the woman pushes all the laptop boxes with the laptops inside
onto the floor and tries to stomp on them screaming, it’s not right, it’s not
fair I was here first . . .
The cashier looks and me and says do you want one, you don’t
have to wait for them to be taken back to the department?
Is she kidding me?
Apparently the store didn’t care that they’d been dumped on
the floor, and some of them stomped on—because that backroom clerk was there
with his silver trolly picking them up and as he headed back people were eager
to grab them off his transport.
I think I will just stay home, read a good book, drink some
spiked egg nog, maybe put up the holiday tree,
Medicine Man I: The Chief of all Time.
Shannon Running Deer is American Indian by blood, he has forsaken his people's ancient ways to embrace the "modern" world as a wealthy, highly successful trauma surgeon.
His comfortable existence begins to unravel when, seemingly by chance, Shannon finds himself gradually drawn into the past. Pursued by an ancient evil, he knows he can change the future, if he can survive the past.
In the tradition of Diana Gabaldon, S.R. Howen's MEDICINE MAN is a distinctive and atmospheric novel full of spirituality, mystical time travel, romance, passion, and suspense.
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