Ahhh yes. It's that favorite day of the year for retailers and those people just crazy enough to get up at 4:00 in the morning to go shopping, and those apparently are the lazy ones.
At the Best Buy store in Syracuse, N.Y., a line snaked past stores and around walkways on the second floor of Carousel Center a few moments before the store's 5 a.m. opening — about eight hours after some people near the front of the line had arrived.
This woman apparently has a towel fetish.
And there has already been a shopping frenzy casualty -- at a Wal-Mart naturally.
A worker died after being trampled by a throng of unruly shoppers when a suburban Wal-Mart opened for the holiday sales rush Friday, authorities said.
At least three other people were injured.
Wow. That just makes me want to hug a flag and sing God Bless America.
I really had no intention of doing a part 4 and I'm sorry in advance for inflicting another one on my readers, but something in the New York Times this morning got me wound up yet again. This is absurd.
In Columbus, Ohio, Theresa Johnston, a 47-year-old social worker, was shopping at the Big Lots discount chain — because she had to, not because she wanted to.
“It’s a little embarrassing, actually. I don’t like to be seen here,” she said, planning to buy a set of 42 knives for $35.
Like thousands of Americans, Ms. Johnston has an adjustable-rate mortgage, and her rising payments have stolen from her holiday spending budget. “Before this, I shopped mostly at Macy’s and some at J. C. Penney, so shopping at Big Lots is, like, two big steps down for me,” she said. “This is going to be a hard Christmas.”
Oh boo fucking hoo. First of all, did Bush sign a law this year that mandates shopping? She "had to?" And what kind of person is embarrassed to be seen in a Big Lots? And what kind of knife set is she getting for $35 that has FORTY-TWO knives? Does she know how to spell the word quality?
By the way, I hate Macys. I don't like to be seen there. Especially after they gobbled up Marshall Fields in Chicago. Many people in Chicago feel the same, so this little blurb comes as no surprise:
A clerk at the Macy’s in the Westfield Old Orchard shopping center outside Chicago described the number of shoppers as no greater than a normal weekend morning.
This has to be in the running for best new word of the year.
From Newsweek, What Would Jesus Buy: The'Reverend' Billy Talen preaches the gospel of his Church of Stop Shopping.
Pass me the reverend's collection plate. I'll drop a couple of bucks in.
And what, exactly, is that message? Actually, he has many, and they're detailed in "What Would Jesus Buy?," a new documentary by director Rob VanAlkemade and producer Morgan "Supersize Me" Spurlock. The new film is Reverend Billy's tour de farce—a ferociously satirical and cynical take on consumer culture, pegged to America's most sacred spending season. Dolled up in High Evangelical style (equal parts Jimmy Swaggart and Reverend Lovejoy), the blond pompadoured Reverend Billy crosses the country with his Church of Stop Shopping, from New York City to Disneyland, breathing brimstone about America's impending "shopocalypse." If the messenger is charismatic and funny, his message is deadly serious.
And this is so very true:
You've targeted Disney, Starbucks, Wal-Mart. What's the common thread here? I would say the three of them have a problematic relationship to public space. All three are claiming they're the new commons, the new place where people go when they are not working or at home. We believe Christmas is the commons. The sidewalks and streets and libraries are commons, not Barnes & Noble.
Go read the rest. I need that documentary now.
Meanwhile, let's get back to some absurdity.
Alcohol may have been involved in a Chicago fist fight. This was not a squabble over a Zune music player, or an Xbox. It was over a...... turkey.
And what's more all-American and wholesome than the family sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner? Well how about domestic abuse and suicide combo in Memphis!
It's hard to top that. Well, not really. How about five dead in a Maryland murder-suicide combo.
If your turkey day did not involve fist fights or gunfire, take a moment to give thanks.
---------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATE: Blue Gal posted video at Crooks & Liars.
Let's get the latest out there in the Black Friday Frenzy. From Hooterville to Bug Tussle, folks are buying anything they can get their hands on as long as it's discounted and perceived to be a bargain worth staying up all night for.
In a scene replayed again and again at stores nationwide, about 200 people stood in line outside a Target in Columbia, S.C., at 5 a.m., an hour before the store was to open.
Tracy Jenkinson, 34, arrived just after 3 a.m. to take the first spot in line.
He planned to buy a $199, 19-inch LCD television for his daughters.
3 a.m. For a 19-inch TV. Aren't those outdated already? Try Goodwill.
"If they were selling it, we were buying it," Tom Shea, 23, said as he surveyed his purchases at a midtown Manhattan Best Buy store. He said he, some friends and a cousin were the first through the doors when the store opened at 4 a.m.
Good for you, Mr. Shea. Knock yourself out. At 4 a.m. I was all warm and cozy under my down comforter which I probably ordered off the internet. Waaaayy easier.
At a Toys "R" Us store in Cherry Hill, N.J., the Torres family from Camden came for Microsoft Zune MP3 players, which were selling for less than half the usual $200.
They secured their spot in line at 1:30 a.m., then sent some family members to Kohl's to pick up toys, watches, a portable DVD player and a griddle in a frenzied 4 a.m. shopping spree that they said took all of six minutes.
My God! Speed shopping perfected! The People's Republic of China must be loving this.
Come one, let's all join hands and salute the flag of the country to which we have enslaved ourselves:
No way in hell would I get up to be at a store for a 4:00am opening just for a $10 off coupon.
No way in hell.
The extreme hours highlight how desperate stores are to win over consumers this holiday season, which is expected to be the weakest in five years because of rising energy prices, falling home values and a tight credit market.
In another sign of retail desperation, more stores are opening on Thanksgiving night, as if one day of mayhem isn't quite enough.
At the CompUSA at Fifth Avenue and 37th Street in Manhattan, store staff handed out individual pumpkin pies, served on red paper plates, to compensate for missed Thanksgiving desserts. As the clock struck 9 p.m., the doors flung open and hundreds of shoppers dashed inside, ransacking displays and overwhelming the staff. Fifteen minutes later, the employees began delivering the bad news: the best deals had sold out.
“No more GPS, sorry,” said one manager. “Those laptops are gone,” yelled another.
Exasperated consumers left the store in anger. “They are toying with the public,” said Syed Sha, 52, who drove to the store two hours before it opened to buy a Sony laptop — regularly $800, on sale for $549 — for his college-age son.
“ I called ahead and they told me they had at least 14 in the store,” he said. “How could they sell out?”
Toying with the public? How could they sell out? Well, perhaps it has something to do with far more than 14 idiots all clamoring for the same crap at the same time.
