by Marie Moeller ’15
Journalism Student

November 30:

I learned: Black Friday is insane

It all starts with my mom waking me up at four in the morning. Just great. Of course, I have gotten up much earlier in previous experiences (2 a.m. is my holding record), as just one of the many burdens of holiday shopping. Still a bit groggy and holding up on six or so hours of sleep, my mom and I go to “beat the sales”.

Now, let me tell you, I am generally cool with getting up that early in the morning for shopping purposes, but it reaches a point where it can honestly just become ridiculous. Like when the staff is half delirious. Or you’re half delirious. Or your mom who is driving the car is half delirious. So as a fair warning to all of you guys who plan on doing some midnight shopping any time soon, here’s my personal experience to learn from.

So we started of our day at four in the morn going to Old Navy which had some good deals. The worst (and possibly the funniest) part of that trip was the employees who were practically asleep. It was actually kind of funny to watch them try to entertain themselves while managing to complain about their shift not being over for at least another three hours. The thing is that no one is there at 4 a.m. anyways. There is always that mad rush of people at midnight that becomes practically nonexistent until 8 a.m. when the more sane people come in to shop. I honestly felt bad for the people. They were basically working for no reason for those few hours. It was just sad.

Next, we went Target so I could use a gift card that I had for the store. I’m not sure how many of you have heard this before, but a lot of people will pronounce Target with a kind of French pronunciation (so that the ending “t” is omitted and the ending syllable is pronounced with a “j” sound followed by a long “a” sound) because it sounds so much fancier and, to me at least, it is super funny. It was hilarious to actually see the Target sign on the store be completely missing the “t”, so you had no other choice but to say it with the French accent. That just made my morning.

Then, we had a whole ordeal of coffee. My mom being thoroughly exhausted just had to get her morning coffee. We went to the Starbucks inside the Target and waited for like ten minutes after ordering like three different ones before finally getting the correct cup of coffee. Meanwhile, a huge line formed behind us. I just couldn’t help to sympathize for every single one of them. I couldn’t help to sympathize for my mom as well when we passed a sign for free coffee and pastries on our way out of Target.

So, after that we went to the mall. I think one of the funniest occurrences there was two men looking for a women’s coat. Those poor souls were just so confused walking around the ladies section trying to figure out which style of coat to buy out of the selection available. They even had to ask one of the sales clerks if they had a certain style available and it was really amusing to watch them try to explain exactly what they were looking for. And of course the entire time they were giving each other pep talks of how they are still very macho and it didn’t bother them that it looked like their shopping for ladies clothes. Obviously it bothered them deeply.

Then, we have my mother who kept on being the typical Black Friday impulse shopper. It was just bad. Every time I finished looking in a store she would always drag me off to another section look at something else that neither of us needed. That is the one thing that bothers me most about Black Friday. It’s not the mobs of people or waking up early. It’s the fact that the only reason that people shop are the sales. Now, you probably think I’m stupid, Of course that’s the reason why everyone shops on Black Friday. But I have two comments to that: 1) if it was any other day you wouldn’t be shopping in the first place and 2) the sales make consumers only want to buy more. Either way, everyone is spending way more than they would on any other given Friday instead of getting the bargains advertised. Even so, it’s a good excuse to go shopping and I guess it’s a plus for American economy. Everyone wins. Well, sort of.