Black Friday

“Honey, you’ve never done this before, have you?”

This was more of a statement than a question, and it was uttered the day before Thanksgiving by a Wal-Mart greeter in response to my wife’s questions about shopping strategies for the big sales on Friday morning. We have never shopped on the Friday after Thanksgiving before, and I suppose I have always felt a little bit of pride about that.

We were researching. Marcy had found some Black Friday ads, and we were checking out the stores, looking at the products, and noting their locations inside the acres of textiles. From the way the Wal-Mart greeter told it, customers would arrive during the night and patrol the store like unblinking sharks waiting for 5:00am to roll around. If we waited until 5:00 to show up, there would be nothing but desolation left.

Friday morning, I got up at 4:00. Neither my wife nor I were wildly revved up about this, but we had seen some good deals. If we scored, it would be nice. If not, we would be no worse for the wear. At least we hoped. While Marcy stayed home with the sleeping children, I ventured to the stores. Feeling fairly certain I would not be able to get my hands on anything from our list, I decided my primary objective would be to observe the people and a situation that was entirely new to me.

We had planned our strategy together: Best Buy first at 5:00, followed by Wal-Mart immediately after, Target at 6:00, and Wal-Greens on the way home. I pulled into Best Buy at 4:20, cup of coffee in hand. The line was about 5 people wide and extended from Best Buy’s front door past Clumpies, past Petsmart, past the several other shops along the sidewalk, and on around the corner. I sauntered up to the line sipping my coffee and ready to observe American culture in action. I was hoping not to see the stereotype drawn by the Wal-Mart greeter. Certainly there would be good and decent people in line. It wouldn’t be pure animal behavior, would it? After all, I was here, right?

I was by turns pleasantly surprised and undeniably disgusted throughout the morning. At the front of the line a scaled-down high-school football team of five strapping boys sat in nylon camp chairs watching portable DVD players, eating snacks, and quaffing hot drinks. As I approached, two mini-vans pulled up with sliding doors opening; mom’s poured out refilling drinks and snacks, taking chairs and electronics as the boys prepared for the impending consumerism. Someone arriving behind me laughed and asked when the boys had arrived. 11:00 last night, they said. It was clearly an adventure, maybe even a tradition. The latecomers trekked on towards the end of the line with well-wishes from the frontlines. After estimating that there were easily over 1,000 people standing in line, I decided to abandon the initial strategy and head to Wal-Mart first.

Two things struck me immediately as the automatic doors whooshed open. First was the absolute silence. Second was the absence of all carts. During the night, Wal-Mart employees had wheeled out pallets of goods; the pallets were pre-wrapped in brown paper. Customers had torn little holes in the paper in order to see what was where before they staked their claim. According to Wednesday’s greeter, Wal-Mart employees would rip off the paper at 5:00. The aisles were jam-packed with empty carts and silent customers. There was no room to move. One of the employees asked his manager, “How are we going to get in there and pull the paper off?”

“You’ll just have to work your way in,” the manager shrugged.

“You really think that’ll work?” the employee returned.

It turned out to be a moot point. At precisely 4:54 I heard the sound of ripping paper. An employee began waving his arms and trying to weave through the carts. “Step away from the pallets!” he yelled. Customers were digging in. The middle-aged women looked up from their prey like lions over a zebra to assess the potential threat. Did he have a gun? Could he even get to them? A furtive glance was all the assurance they needed before they returned to their task. It was as if someone shouted, “GO!” Paper went flying in shreds. Managers could barely be heard on the PA system yelling for customers step away from the pallets. It was havoc; it was spectacle; it was animal. It reminded me of a soda that had been shook and then opened by an unsuspecting victim.

There were collisions. There were tears. There were different strategies in play. One pair of women had obviously arrived early in the morning and camped near pallets. One grabbed two TVs while at the opposite end her partner grabbed two DVD players. They passed for a minute, congratulating each other on the attainments before continuing the feeding frenzy. A minute later, I saw the woman with the DVD players yelling at her partner. Apparently, she had left her cart for a second and someone else snatched the TVs. Although I had scored a cart just before the paper shredding, I felt comfortable leaving it here and there as I was not out for big purchases. The coolest thing I was shopping for today was a toaster oven. Not exactly a hot item it seems.

By 5:11 I was checking out and by 5:19 I was back at Best Buy. Best Buy was calmer. Everyone waited outside. Every time eight customers left the store, they let eight more in. The conversation was amicable and light-hearted in line. Everyone seemed convinced they would not get what they were shopping for. The elderly couple behind me kept saying, “Well, it’s nothing we need. Just toys for grandparents.” They must have concluded two-dozen paragraphs with that preemptive consolation. “I wonder where in the store we’ll find the DVD players? I wonder if there are any left. Oh well, it’s nothing we need. Just toys for grandparents.”

“Why do they call it Black Friday?” someone asked. I had been wondering the same thing. Was it an oblique and symbolic acknowledgment of our own excessive culture? Was it because everyone had been up well before the crack of dawn?

“It’s when businesses go back in the black,” a woman answered. “Didn’t you know that?” Well, we're all just here doing our civic duty then.

Best Buy employees began walking down the line at 5:47. “What are you shopping for?" they’d ask. The answer was almost always laptops, computers, or LCD TVs. When they came to me I replied, “A TV.” Ours has no picture, and it has been that way for months. Literally no picture. It projects a black screen with an intensely bright white line crossing its midsection. And the sound is going, too.

"What kind of TV?” asked the employee.

“20-inch Insignia for $54,” I quoted the ad.

“You can go in,” the employee said. Apparently not a hot item either.

The couple in front of me congratulated me on my access. “Thank you,” I said. “See you soon,” I added. We had already exchanged Thanksgiving stories and brief family histories. I felt like I knew them.

The last 40 yards to the doors held more surprises. On the sidewalk lay abandoned sleeping bags, discarded playing card decks, a scattered UNO game, banana peels, bananas, hundreds of coffee cups, some spilled coffee, hand-warmer packs, pop-tarts, oatmeal packets, a thermos, plastic spoons, Styrofoam bowls, batteries (I assumed dead), a broken CD, and local news reporters.

As I walked into the store, I made room for a team of employees aiding a happy customer with his purchases: a box measuring approximately six feet long, four feet high, and about a foot deep containing a wall-mount plasma television. The successful bargain hunter and the workers wrestled his massive kill into the back of his $60,000 pick-up truck with other big purchases: a desktop computer, monitor, scanner-printer, a desk for it all, and big speakers. With his trophies strapped down, the urban hunter headed off into the predawn morning.

Before I walked in, I glanced down at Target. Another huge crowd waited for the doors that would be open in 13 minutes.