On the news this morning I saw multiple videos of the mayham, the utter bedlam, the violent lunacy of the mob at stores which opened early on Black Friday with “door buster” deals and sales. In one case, the mob busted down the door, rushed in and just took things (i.e., stole them). I guess the stores got what they advertized when they slapped “door buster” up everywhere.
I think an interesting show down might be between the Black Friday Door Busters and the Occupy Wall Street crowd.
The Occupiers wanted to disrupt some Black Friday sales and the Door Busters were not going to be denied. It seems a natural fit, right? Rather like the perennial battle between jackals and hyenas.
I’m not sure about the details here for the broadcasts and rules of the match-ups. Should there be, for example, penalties? Time outs? Video reviews?
Don’t break down the blog’s door with suggestions.
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Sounds like a cage match between Avarice and Envy…
Sadly, a man shopping yesterday fell ill on the floor and shoppers continued to shop, some stepping over him.
He died: http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/Man_Dies_on_Black_Friday_Shoppers_Unfazed_134507443.html
During the homily yesterday, Father spoke of no one waiting at the doors of the church for them to open.
I think MargaretC deserves a gold star.
We have this type of behaviour here in Australia on Boxing Day when people arrive at the shops from very early in the morning for the post christmas sales.
BTW,what is the origin of Black Friday?
Peter G, here is my unofficial take on Black Friday: in the United States, it is traditional (more or less) to hold off on the all-out observance of the Christmas season (that is to say, the secular or commercial season of pre-Christmas shopping and other festivities) until after Thanksgiving Day, which is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Since the Friday after Thanksgiving Day is taken or given as a day off from work or school for a great many people, many of them have used it to begin their Christmas shopping, and it has become something like the official first day of the Christmas shopping season. I think it’s called Black Friday because the retailers hope that this huge shopping extravaganza will put them “in the black” financially; the name “Black Friday” is, in my awareness anyway, of fairly recent origin.
Father Longenecker has an interesting comparison of Black Friday with Good Friday here:
http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2011/11/black-friday-and-good-friday.html
“What is the origin of Black Friday?”
For the benefit of non-American readers: the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. (which is always a Friday because Thanksgiving is always a Thursday) has been regarded as the “official” beginning of the Christmas shopping season since the early 20th century. Most American workers not employed in the retail or hospitality sector have this day as a holiday in addition to Thanksgiving, which makes it a natural day to begin Christmas shopping.
The term Black Friday itself seems to have originated among traffic cops and bus drivers in Philadelphia in the mid 1960s, in reference to the traffic jams and unruly crowds of shoppers they had to deal with in the downtown shopping district on the day after Thanksgiving. The notion that Black Friday refers to the day retailers go “into the black” (start making a profit) for the year seems to have been an invented explanation that popped up after the term came into more widespread use in the 1970s and 80s.
Thank you to Laura and Bookworm for that information.
Will pepper spray be permitted? Will points be deducted for hiding in the toy aisle? Will the shopping team have to pay for their products in order to score points, or will shoplifting be acceptable?
I had to stop at the local Wal-Mart (a former coworker from the Catholic bookstore I used to work at calls it ‘Slave-Mart’) to look for a new set of headphones for my laptop, and I didn’t find the pushing, chaotic crowds that I was expecting and dreading. I usually avoid Black Friday like the plague.
But there was an incident at a Wal-Mart in the next city where there was a fight over some stupid video game.
Shows how low we’ve come today….
Oh, one more thing….at the entrance of the shopping center (called ‘Consumer Square’-hate the term ‘consumer’) I spotted an ‘Occupy’ type with his little dome tent waving a cardboard sign. I think it said something about ‘fair trade’ and ‘buying local’….couldn’t really read it and keep my eyes on the road at the same time.
Idiotic, all the same….