Black Friday (#7)

This is a first person article I wrote for my news writing class.

‘Tis the season to be jolly and leave your kids in the car while you go shopping for nine hours.

Black Friday, to me, has always been an image of some sort of a nightmare. Kids locked in cars, people trampled while running through sliding, glass doors, mothers pulling each other’s hair, fighting over who gets the last Buzz Lightyear action figure and customers cutting in line so they can get to the next good deal at Costco.

I had always refused – and when I say refused, I mean you could not drag me from my house if you paid me $100 – refused, refused, refused to go anywhere on Black Friday. My friends would try to convince me with “But they have the best deals!” or “Everything is so cheap, you have to see it to believe it!”

I said no. No way. Not ever. I’ve watched the news. I’ve heard the horror stories. People die on Black Friday, I was not, and would not ever be ready to try to live through the madness of Black Friday.

I was perfectly fine with stuffing my face with leftovers from Thanksgiving Day of cold, turkey sandwiches and rehydrated stuffing, while watching a marathon of the Real World on MTV.

The only exception I’ve made for Black Friday was in 2007. One of my best friends, who was in town from New York, dragged me by my feet to K-Mart around 4 p.m. It was after the rush, and it was K-Mart, no one shops at K-Mart, so there was no harm done to my body.

That was the only exception I thought I would ever make to go shopping on Black Friday, until this year.

For Thanksgiving break, I drove to my mediocre hometown of Mason City, IA on Sunday the 21^st. I was more than ready for this break from school, but more importantly, I was excited that I got to work at Prime ‘N Wine on Thanksgiving Day. Other than working, I had prepared myself for absolute laziness.

I took home with me my leopard print Snuggie, my printed sheep slippers, and my bag of Hershey Kisses with mint inside. I was ready to do absolutely nothing but cuddled up in front of my television and order movies OnDemand all week. But then I thought, what the heck am I going to write about for my final story for my narrative news writing class? And that’s when it came to me.

I’m going to shop on Black Friday, I thought to myself. After all, I had never done any serious shopping the day after Thanksgiving, and I wanted a new perspective on my addiction to spending money on myself…and others.

I had already spent upwards of $400 on new clothes less than a month before with my loan money for school, so I deemed it necessary to spend my hard-earned money from my jobs at Telefund and Panera on some sweet deals on Black Friday. It was a reward for myself, of course.

But then I thought, no. I won’t buy anything. I’ll just observe. Don’t get involved with Black Friday, it’s not your friend, remember – people die on this day. But what would a real Black Friday be without shopping? The devil and angel on my shoulders argued for a while then I finally decided I would just buy one thing.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I stopped at Younker’s to observe the preparation for the next shopping day. There were so many items stocked to the brim. Scarves were practically falling off the racks, displays of mittens and stocking caps lined the aisle of jewelry that was neatly hung, and sweaters and coats were packed on their racks until they almost fell off.

Did they expect to sell that many items? I knew it was for Black Friday, but seriously, Mason City has a population of less than 30,000 people, most of which are elderly or 8 years old, and not everyone shops on Black Friday – a lot are like me.

Since I was at Younkers, I did look for things that I might buy on the day of death, and kept a certain Calvin Kline down coat in mind, originally 200 dollars. If I were to buy anything, it was going to be that. I also went to Wal-Mart on Wednesday – it didn’t look any different from how it usually was.

I decided I was going to go to Wal-Mart at midnight on Black Friday to see what the big deal was about. I took a nap after I visited with family on Thanksgiving, preparing myself for the early morning festivities.

Wal-Mart was packed.

After the stampede of crazy mothers and focused fathers, the check out lines immediately filled. As I stood in the back of the lines in observation, one woman said, “These lines aren’t even that bad.”

Not that bad? There are 24 lines and all of them had at least 10 people waiting in line – only 30 minutes after midnight. They were the longest lines I’d ever seen.

Most parents had either a cart full of toys or a stack of DVD’s in hand, as they were going for $5 apiece. One father had a child sized motorized jeep, ATV and motorcycle stacked on top of each other in one cart. Was he preparing his kid for the X-Games or something? As for the DVD’s, I think 18 was plenty for one mother in particular.

The clothing sections of the stores were less messy than I expected – a sole coat lay on the floor. Dolls and action figure were missing, but none really scattered about.

The one thing that bothered me the most was the stack of Woody and Buzz Lightyear dolls. One Buzz was gone. That’s it – one. When I was younger, there were none left the next day – I would know, because I wanted one for Christmas, but when I went to Wal-Mart, they were gone.

Not even the Easy-Bake ovens had been touched. I was contemplating buying one for myself since I had sold my old one in a garage sale years ago. I felt bad for them.

I got bored people watching, so I left to go take another nap before heading to Best Buy. As I left, the only two police officers stared me down as I had nothing in hand; after the alarm didn’t go off, I had feared they would come after me. So much for high security.

As I drove home, I passed Best Buy and Target – 1:15 and people were already in line for the openings at 4 a.m. When I had returned to Best Buy, I was hesitant to stand in line because I knew I wasn’t going to buy anything, and they were handing out vouchers to people in line.

Some people even sold their vouchers for cash – how crazy is that?

Lupe Puga, Iowa City resident who worked at Best Buy on Black Friday, said Best Buy is more organized than Wal-Mart or Target because of their voucher system.

“By having the ticket system, it eliminates people fighting because by the time [people] are in line outside they already know if they will be able to get what they were looking for,” she said. “The only problem they face walking into the store is the line they have to wait in while we ring them out.”

Because of the voucher system, I left Best Buy and went home to go back to bed. What a disappointment, I thought. Black Friday was not living up to the reputation I thought it had.

Later in the day, I went to Younkers and bought that Calvin Kline coat for $74.28, what a great deal. Younkers was busy, lines were long, and everything was cheap. The floors were a little messy with scarves and hats, but in all, it too, was a disappointment.

The lack-luster of a day Black Friday had been for me could have been due to the 20 percent increase in online sales, according to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation. With more deals online, Black Friday may just turn into Sunshine Yellow Friday.

Black Friday was surely not what I had expected. No one was trampled on, no kids were left in cars, no one even died.