Well, another ‘Black Friday’ has come and gone. I’m rather pleased to say that I spent the entire day within the comfortable confines of my apartment, playing with the goodies of OS 10.4, and venturing out only to get the mail. This is a personal tradition with me, something I started a few years back when I first started to realize just how the day after Thanksgiving brought out the absolute worst in people. Wherever you go on this day, Americans are in kill mode, amid all the various dancing mechanical dancing Santa’s, wreaths, and Christmas trees. (Or is it ‘holiday trees’ now? I have a hard time keeping up with these things.)
Let me explain something here, for our non-American readers. The term ‘Black Friday’ refers to the Friday following Thanksgiving day, always the last Thursday of November. The expression came about some years ago, (I’m not really certain when) because it is the day when American retailers do so much business that they finally become profitable for the year. Accountants for these retailers get to write in black ink, thus the expression ‘Black Friday’. Cute, yes?
It has some other meanings though. For employees who work in the retail business, Black Friday is their busiest, most stressful day of the entire year. I have heard that despite labor laws, many retail employees do not get so much as a bathroom break, never mind a lunch break, on Black Friday. That could explain the smell at a local Best Buy that someone told me about. (Yes, yes, I know some of you hard-liners are thinking ‘Well Boo-Hoo!! They chose to work in retail, and it’s not my friggin’ problem!!’ Consider it said. Oh yes, that mantra must be said with bulging eyes, and pulsating forehead veins. That always looks funny. ) For people such as myself, who dislike crowds and noise, Black Friday is a day to simply stay inside, and avoid any unnecessary travel. Plus, with the annual winter time ‘stomach virus spectacular’ apparently getting an early start this year, well, there’s another reason to stay in and avoid crowds on this day.
By now, most people have heard about the small riot that occurred before dawn, at an Orlando, Florida Walmart. The riot began when a man tried to cut into a line of people who were frantically trying to buy laptop computers that were being offered for less than five hundred dollars. Some reports say the man was thrown to the floor and punched, while other customers cheered. All for a laptop computer that, in all likelihood, will either fall apart in less than six months, or be gathering dust under some kid’s bed one year from now. What’s wrong with this picture?
There were numerous other reports of this type, from all over the country, and not all of them involve Walmart. A few of them involved Best Buy, and smaller retailers. The setup was always the same: A retail store opens very early on Black Friday, with various consumer goods going on sale at very low prices. People are standing in line to get in, hours before opening time. Some literally pitch camp on Thanksgiving night, and stay overnight, just for a chance to purchase these goods. (Said goods are frequently poorly manufactured plastic crap, or pretty useless electronic junk, but that’s not what I want to vent about here.) The doors open, and the consumers go stampeding in. The Mayhem begins. Watching these scenes on television reminds me of those National Geographic specials, where they show a group of Hyena’s swarming in on a fresh kill. At least the Hyena’s are after food, not some useless piece of plastic crap.
Understand this: If retailers want to open for business at 5 AM, to help put themselves in the black, that is their right. If consumers want to make fools of themselves and camp in the parking lot overnight, just to try to buy something, that’s their right too. By all means, have at it. I’m glad we’re clear on that. (That entire bit is to circumvent those occasional dodo’s who show up in forums and blog sites, and start screeching about ‘my rights!’ They’re probably using cheap laptops.)
So, here’s my question: How did we come to this? No really, how did we get to this point in this country? I’m not one to defend Walmart. In fact, I tend to be pro-worker and anti-Walmart, but are they responsible for how customers behave? Some might make the argument that Walmart and the other retailers should have had more security, or had more of the cheap laptops, or other plastic crap, on hand. How much security, and how many cheap laptops, exactly? What does it take to make grown adults behave as grown adults? Can’t grown adults simply accept the fact that they just might not get one of the cheap laptops, or the latest gotta-have-it Christmas junk toy?
People did not behave this way in the America I grew up in. No one heard of a riot over a Christmas toy in the 60’s or 70’s. The reason people didn’t hear about them is because they didn’t happen. At what point did it become acceptable to trample over another person, or beat someone up at 5 AM over a Christmas toy? Some might suggest that ‘when you were growing up, it was a simpler time. People weren’t under as much stress’. No, I don’t buy it. That ‘stress’ argument just doesn’t wash with me, and it’s turning into a convenient excuse. No, I think there’s something else going on. Values and concepts such as self-discipline, civil decency and mutual respect, (not to mention good planning, and the willingness to accept that you might not get what you are after) have somehow been flushed down the toilet, and the results are not pretty.
It gets worse. Seems a lot of characters actually enjoy being being u-know-whats, and daring anyone to do something about it. Here’s a dandy story about a knuckle dragger who apparently didn’t like being told what to do aboard a commercial aircraft.
No, your eyes don’t deceive you. This waste of meat just opened up his pants and urinated right there, in the aisle of the plane, after being told to put out his cigarette. And please, don’t say something such as ‘perhaps he needs counseling’. Horse Manure! There is no defense for any of it, and this guy does not need counseling. What he, and others like him need, is for a U.S. Navy SEAL to be sitting next to him at all times while he’s in public, to make sure he behaves. Too bad such a solution would be logistically impossible to pull off, and a waste of time for good military personnel. What do airlines have to do, install ‘naughty rooms’ for adults on planes? To heck with that, they should just have ejection tubes for such people, end of discussion.
What the heck is going on? Road rage, grocery store rage, people urinating on commercial airplanes to show how tough they are, and now, ‘Holiday shopping rage’. Riots and people getting trampled over for Christmas toys, and cheaply manufactured laptops. Last year, when a big snowstorm was being forecast for Boston, there was a similar riot at a local Home Depot over snow shovels, of all things. Oh yes, before anyone mentions it,,, Yes, there is always the possibility that some of these trampling incidents might be put-up jobs, with the objective being a nice lawsuit, and resulting settlement. I have not forgotten this.
Red-faced, bug-eyed shouting matches over parking spaces. (and sometimes, some creative windshield smashing.) Suburban mommy types getting robbed at gunpoint over the latest X-Box gadget.
The list goes on and on, and every year, it just gets longer. What the heck is going on in this country? What’s going to be ‘acceptable’ in five years? Ten years? In twenty years? I fully expect we’ll be seeing stories that read something like this: ‘A man was shot to death in the parking lot of a big-box retail store today, after another man asked him the time. The man responded that he wasn’t wearing a watch, when the second man became enraged, drew his licensed handgun, and opened fire. The local district attorney declined to file charges against the shooter, since the shooter stated that he was running late for his son’s soccer practice, and was under stress. His gun was confiscated for three days however, for a cooling off period’.
Ever watch that program, ‘Lost’? Given the way civil morals and values are vanishing in this country, I think that if I were one of those people from Oceanic Flight 815, I would not want to be rescued from that island. I mean really, how bad could that mysterious, unseen monster possibly be, compared to people who riot. get into fist-fights, and trample others over a cheap laptop?
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