My wife does it every year she can.
We go to WV, she, her mother, her sister and brother’s fiance all get up at 4:00am, drive 2 hours into the nearest big city and shop all day.
I can’t stand it.
I used to make sure I had all my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving, now, since I work midnights, I can usually make it to the stores early enough on a weekday that I don’t have to fight too many crowds.
I started a new job today, in a large shopping mall. It also happens to be at a very popular children’s store.
Black Friday will be my third day on the job. Pity me. 
No way!
hyperjes, may the Lord* bless you, keep you, and preserve you in the face of the perils you are about to face.
*or Deity of your choice
CJ
hyperjes, have you ever heard this saying: “Eat a frog first thing in the morning; it will be the worst thing that happens to you all day”. Maybe think in those terms. Starting off working in a store like that on Black Friday, man, make the rest of your time there seem like a Caribbean Cruise!
Thank you, Siege. I’ll need the blessings, I’m sure.
norinew, that’s pretty much what I was thinking. Doesn’t make me relish the thought though.
The only time I would want to venture out at 5:00 AM on a rare Friday off from work, would have to be if a store had a really fantastic buy on something I have been needing or wanting anyway. Other than that, forget it!
I pity the poor souls who first have to spend all day Thanksgiving thinking about the hell that awaits them the next day, then having to go to bed early on Thanksgiving night and be at their places of work at 5:00 AM, if not earlier, and then deal with the huge crowds of rude, impatient shoppers. I once worked in retail, but I’m glad the store I worked in (an office supply store) didn’t open early or have a super sale for the first hour or anything like that. Still, we were busy just from all the people who were out and about doing their shopping.
elfkin477, I’m with you. Mrs. Rimshot and I go out just for the thrill of danger. The tension in the air, the frenzied scurrying, the fear – they spell Christmas to us!
. . . my second favorite place to be is at a busy airport, Friday afternoon, just as a wave of flights come in and folks dash to make their connections. The same quiet desperation as the mall at Christmas.
Ah, good memories . . .
Hooray for the Web.
No more Black Friday parking lot Demolition Derby for me!
cool. I hope yall did not combine her B-day with Christmas. A lot of people I know that were born in Dec or Jan do not get separate presents for their b-day, since it is so close. That is sooo unfair to a kid. On Dec 26 while my sisters and friends were playing with there 1 day old presents, I got new ones !! :)) So cool.
Is she still big? What year? When I was born (1961) stores did not have handicap carts.
I first heard the term “Black Friday” when my mother had a job in what was then a mid-range department store. (They later dropped all the non-clothing departments and things became somewhat less hectic on Black Friday.) She is extremely skeptical of the notion that the term came about because it’s the day balance sheets go into the black, and says that sounds like a pretty lie invented to tell the newspapers. She believes the term is a gallows-humor way of describing one of the most stressful days of the year for retail workers.
If I was in the States that day, there is no way you could get me into a store that day that did not involve firearms.
She’ll be 4 on this Dec. 29th, so, prior to this year she didn’t really care, but we’ve still celebrated her birthday separately. I’m seriously considering the idea of starting next year to celebrate her “half birthday” in July instead of having a party for her right after Christmas. She is still big for her age. She’s above the hundredth percentile for height and weight. In fact, her best friend (my best friend’s little girl) was born 5 weeks after my daughter was, and we hand down my daughter’s clothes to her best friend! Her friend is much more average in size. My girl is also very developed in gross and fine motor skills and “conceptual language”. She is speech delayed, but has the speech understanding of a kid about 15 months older than her. She is also exceptionally beautiful. Okay, now I’m bragging.
Well, I hope so.
Yes, absolutely, and I will make sure to start at Bloomingdale’s, then Macy*s Herald Square, then the Virgin megastore in Times Square, and then grab a TKTS ticket for Walt Disney’s AIDA, and then have a bite at the McDonald’s on 42nd, and then maybe I’ll take in the dinosaur hall at the Museum of Natural History, and then the Gap on Columbus, followed by a saunter through the Barnes and Noble in Lincoln Center, then Burger King for variety, then downtown to let the girl from Destiny’s Child work her magic on me, and finally, a look at the tree at Rockefeller Center!
Then I will hug some snakes! Yes, I will kiss and hug some poisonous snakes!!
I have to work on Friday. Hopefully the hordes of people out shopping will completely ignore Kinko’s in favor of the mall up the street.
[Yogi Berra]
Nobody shops on Black Friday. The stores are too crowded.
[/Yogi Berra]
My wife is leaving the boy at her parents overnight, getting up at 4AM, and going to Wal Mart for a DVD/VCR combo she is hoping will be on sale…
I’ll be there shortly after splitting myself from crotch to eyeball with a dull deer antler.
Jeremiah
Ummm, I’ve already finished my Christmas shopping.
The last time we went shopping on Black Friday, I was in a wheelchair and Hubby would use me as a battering ram. Nope, not doing that again.
Thank goodness I can take a day off work to get my shopping done. Even if I couldn’t, I still wouldn’t shop on friday. My whole family agrees they’d rather do without a present if it means a loved one is forced to undergo the trauma that is Black Friday just for a bit of savings.
It also bugs me that retailers pull this sort of holiday shopping stunt. A one hour sale? Bite me.
Well, I can completely understand why they do it. They know a lot of people are going to be doing a lot of shopping between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. The question is, what stores are going to be the ones to get these peoples’ money? It’s pretty easy to devise a way to get shoppers into a particular store first. Just offer the best deals, but only offer them for the first couple of hours. Then, they hope that once the shopper is already in the store, they’ll think, well, since I’m already here, I might as well pick up 20 other things I need.
I don’t buy into such tactics, but apparently a lot of people do. And the people who do are pretty much happy about it, so I’m glad that the retailiers offer it. That way, a lot of my fellow human beings have something to be happy about this week! Also, a lot of people can afford to give nicer gifts than they could otherwise give.