The Car Guy of Benchfield
Home + TCGOB NASCAR! + Photo Garage + Links + Mad Mad Automotive World + Driving Songs + Humor Pages + Reader's Rides+ All About TCGOB + Contact Us
Holiday Shoppers are Whacked
By Steve Wingate
I've never quite figured out the deal about the "day after Thanksgiving" shopping madness.
One theory is that the retail industry actually created this "shopping holiday", in much the same way that some people claim that greeting card companies invent holidays in order to sell gazillions of cards. (Reminder: December 18th is "National Hug-A-Convenience Store Clerk Day". Remember the convenience store clerk in YOUR life with an overpriced overly-sentimental piece of cardboard from your friendly neighborhood national greeting card chain store. Financing available.)
My preferred theory is that day-after-Thanksgiving shoppers are just plain whacked. No other explanation makes near as much sense. Okay, you get up super early on a day when there is no need to get up super early. (Unless you are one of those poor souls who must work at the locations where these demented shoppers converge.) Then, you must go face shoppers that would probably bludgeon you to death over something like a 19" TV or a Beat Me Elmo, or whatever the current Most Obnoxious and Unattainable Electronic Toy That Every Child Must Have or Die may be. Then, you have to stand in check-out or layaway lines that stretch into neighboring counties.
When it comes your turn to check out with your purchases, you are greeted by an understandably sullen cashier. After all, this person had to get up even earlier than you did, so she could come and wait on obnoxious holiday shoppers such as yourself. This person would probably rather be some more quiet and sedate, such as a Metallica concert or a mortar field. This person hates you, make no mistake about it, and thinks you should be at home sleeping, just like all the other normal people in the world. Normal people do their Christmas shopping in March. (Reminder: National Overworked and Under- Paid Retail Workers Day is December 28th. Show the Overworked and Underpaid Retail Worker on your list that yadda yadda yadda.)
I can speak for retail workers because I have been there. I worked for one of our nation's largest mass retailers while I was in college, so I know what it's like to be trampled by early morning day-after-Thanksgiving shoppers. I know what it's like to be yelled at because the store is out of the current Most Desirable Toy That Your Children See on Saturday Morning Commercials and Cannot Live Without toy. When E.T. was released on video in the late eighties, a customer actually beat me with the empty cardboard display because we sold out of all ten thousand copies before seven AM. I also remember seeing a sweet, grandmotherly-looking old woman waiting outside for the store to open tell one of the assistant managers that if he didn't hurry up and unlock the @!*&% door, that she was going to break the *$@!%ing thing down. Christmas always brings out the best in people.
If you stayed home this "day-after-Thanksgiving", you did the right thing. If you were waiting outside of Toys R Us or the mall at 3:30 in the morning, shame on you. I assure you that there really is more than just a handful of the things you need for your shopping list in existence. Ask yourself: Do I really need a 19" TV for 59.99? Do I really need a copy of Windows ME for 24.97? Do I actually own a computer in the first place? Do I really want to wait in lines that won't reach the checkout counter until Easter? Do I really want to fight the traffic and share the road with people who have had very little sleep? What am I doing here? Where am I going? Do I want one lump or two? Paper or plastic? Bologna with cheese or bologna without cheese? Can I see those choices again?
Remember, National Hug-a-Demented Humor Columnist Day is February 6th. Your gift of cash or narcotics is greatly appreciated. Screw the card, though.
2002 Car Guy of Benchfield