Black Friday Part 3

Fuck Thanksgiving.

Yeah, you heard me. It's a useless, outdated holiday that forces you to A) Eat a lot (which wouldn't be so bad if traditional Thanksgiving food was good or interesting, but turkey and stuffing is bland and dull), and B) Either travel home to see your family or come up with excuses why you can't. If it weren't for the novelty of weekday football, it would be completely unbearable.

No, the best part of the Thanksgiving holiday is the day after. Black Friday is even better than Christmas, because Christmas is all about peace on earth and goodwill towards men and giving is better than receiving and all that shit. But Black Friday? Black Friday is all about raw, naked, lustful consumerism. Anyone who buys stuff for other people on Black Friday is completely missing the point of the day, which is to spend wildly and out of control on yourself, all for the sake of snagging a TV that has a couple of hundred bucks knocked off the price, or a $3 DVD, or some widget that you never even knew you wanted or needed until you saw it on sale.

Accounts of my last two Black Fridays can be found here and here. This year, I faced something of a quandary, as there were no "must have" items in any of the ad circulars. Even the DVD and game selections were pretty weak. So with no specific goal in mind, I decided to start my Black Friday out by Springfield Mall, which, even though the whole area has pretty much gone down the drain over the past decade, has some great stores in close proximity to each other. Here are a few of the highlights:


Circuit City

I arrived at about 4:30 AM, and the line was pretty short. I'd say maybe 200 people ahead of me. I started to suspect that maybe the economy really does suck. This was confirmed a few minutes later when employees started walking down the line with vouchers for various HDTV deals, including one that came with a free Blu-ray player, and no one bit. Ditto for when they came around with Wii vouchers.

After getting inside, I browsed for a bit, found some stuff, and went to pay. There was only one line for all six registers, and I want to give a shout out to the Circuit City employees, who did a fantastic job at not just keeping everyone in line, but yelling at any customers who tried to bypass it and go directly to a register. At one point, a manager even yelled at a couple of employees on the registers who hadn't signaled they were ready for another customer. Why can't all big box stores be this efficient?


Best Buy

At about 5:45, I headed over to Target, only to discover that they didn't open until 6. Pussies. So I went across the street to Best Buy, where there was still a long line to get in, presumably because it was filled to capacity. Can't we suspend things like fire marshal regulations on Black Friday? What's the worst that can happen?


Sports Authority

There was half a rack of marked-down Mark Brunell Redskins jerseys just sitting there. This made me sad, and I thought about buying one out of pity, before I realized that Mark Brunell wouldn't ever know about it, and probably wouldn't give a shit if he did.


Modell's Sporting Goods

More Redskins jersey fun. Apparently, someone in Modell's purchasing department really likes Carlos Rogers and really went overboard ordering his jersey, because there were enough of them on sale to clothe a small country, along with a few other jerseys from guys like James Thrash, Rocky McIntosh, and Marcus Washington. (Of course, the jerseys that people actually want were still at full price. Fuck you, Modell's.) They did have a Mike Sellers jersey on sale which I thought about getting. But unfortunately, they only had it in white, and when it comes to Redskins jerseys, I'm a burgundy man.


Apple Store

Either Apple doesn't understand the concept of Black Friday, or they just have complete disdain for it. Because their "sales" sucked. $11 off an iPod? $21 off a Time Capsule? Wow. Hey, how about knocking down those $30 earbuds to something halfway reasonable?

At one point, one of the Apple Store "geniuses" shouted, "We got another one!" and all the other employees started clapping and cheering. When they do this, it might help to explain to confused customers what the fuck is going on. Because they all looked like crazy people.


Auntie Anne's

Technically, I guess this doesn't count as Black Friday shopping, but if you haven't had one of their pretzel dogs, you really need to. There's something especially cool--borderline deviant, actually--about having one at 7:30 AM.


The Gap

Their big Black Friday promotion? Two holiday sweaters for the price of one. Holiday. Sweaters. Decisions like this might be why they're currently struggling to stay in business.


Some Mall Kiosk

A woman with a heavy East European accent was offering samples of perfume and cologne that she was selling out of one of those carts/kiosks in the middle of the mall. As I walked by, she waved to get my attention.

Her: "Care for a free sample?"
Me: "No, thanks."
Her: "Are you sure? Let me see your hand. You'll like it."
Me: "That's okay. Thanks."
Her: "Give me your hand!"

I broke into a near-run to get away from her.

Eventually, after driving over half of Northern Virginia, including up to Tysons Corner, I called it a day. That's another great thing about Black Friday: because it starts so early, you can do a lot, and be back in bed by noon. And I managed to spend less than $200, which I think was also a victory.

Finally, I have two additions to my Black Friday rogues gallery from last year:

The Black Friday Virgin

Has never been out on a Black Friday morning, and has likely gone through life looking down on those who have. But this year, whether it's out of curiosity or desperation for a bargain, she's lowered herself to mixing with the rabble by lining up outside a store at dawn. During the wait, she'll look around in awe and make comments like, "This is so crazy! I can't believe all these people who come out just to save a few bucks!" High possibility of becoming a Line Comedian as well, once she notices that people are laughing politely at her inane observations and decides to be the Black Friday Jerry Seinfeld.


Can't Read a Circular Guy

Even though there's a list of everything a store has on sale helpfully printed in the Black Friday circular, and signs on the shelves with those sale prices, he can often be heard pestering employees with questions like, "How much is this game?"or "Is this on sale?" or "Why is that one on sale but this one isn't on sale?" Likely won't be happy until the employee throws up her hands in frustration, and says whatever it is he wants is a dollar.