#BlackFriday...bah humbug!

Photo copied from http://mashable.com/2012/11/22/black-friday-photos-2012/

I used to work in retail when the term "Black Friday" was originally coined in reference to the day after Thanksgiving. The phrase used to be something we employees would mutter under our breath as we prayed the weekend would pass by in a blur, not some huge sale-abration as it's depicted now. I know exactly what store employees are going through today. It's that if-only-I-could-blink-and-wake-up-on-Monday feeling mixed with a little nausea and lots of foot and back pain. This weekend is brutal and requires Herculean amounts of patience...and vodka.

Perhaps it is for this reason I traditionally abstain from Black Friday. Also, having been through a serious financial crunch a couple of years ago, I've scaled back my Christmas shopping and found the holiday so much more peaceful when not worried about what gift I'm going to get my co-workers or passing acquaintances or my neighbor's dog groomer. I write this tongue in cheek, but for a while there I was buying stuff for people I hardly knew only because I felt like I had to and I knew they were going to give me something though I didn't really understand why. A Christmas present should be given from the heart, but I digress.

So, yeah...Black Friday. Having been on the receiving end of the madness, I'm loath to be the umpteenth customer who asks if there are more of the two dollar electric coffee mug warmers I saw in the sales flyer but can't seem to find on the shelves. Also, Black Friday deals are much like the Loch Ness Monster. I see purported evidence of them on TV, I've also heard people tell stories about them, but damned if I've ever actually encountered one myself. Sure, there are a few amazing deals on things I don't really want or need in the first place, but the items on which I would really appreciate a deep discount (such as that Lego set my son's been drooling over all year, but that costs an arm and a leg), those things aren't marked down all that much. Am I going to risk life and limb to save ten or fifteen bucks...no way.

While much of the US loses its mind over door busters and too-good-to-resist bargains, I'm staying home. I will eat leftover turkey and pumpkin pie, sip hot cocoa and sort through my Christmas decorations blissfully removed from the insanity. To those miserable sales associates counting down the minutes until their shifts end so that they can curl up in the fetal position until it all starts over tomorrow, I offer you my sincerest sympathies. As for the rest of Black Friday, I say bah humbug.