12/02/2003 09:42:00 AM by Rob

Black Friday

I promised Scott at the Northside Lounge that I would focus a little better, since they were kind enough to link to me, but I can't resist throwing in this nugget from Richard Roeper Sun-Times column today.

Without further adieu, here's Rich:

As for the retail reaction to stampeding shoppers, here's one reader's description of what it looks like from a store employee's point of view:

"Black Friday is a foul celebration of all that is grim within the human spirit. One particularly bleak season . . . I found myself at the mercy of those people. The doors opened and we were awash in a sea of large rumps and tight fists. [These] 'Caligula'-like harpys and their dim husbands [had but] one dank purpose: gnaw on the skulls of lowly retail clerks.

"Dostoyevsky said that hell was a room with a chair? He obviously never experienced a Black Friday shopping melee."

Long live on-line shopping. We have done more than 90% of our holiday shopping online. In 1995 I partook of the 6AM crowd at Target in McHenry for the start of the Xmas shopping spree. Just to see what it was like, because I had heard stories, and people tend to exaggerate.

The front of the door was blocked by a 400 pound woman on a Rascal, with a metal cane in the front basket, whacking people on the arms when they came too close to her or the front door. By gum, she was GONNA BE FIRST to get her hands on them Power Rangers when the store opened.

Promptly at 6, the stockboys opened the doors, and RAN back into the store. The Hulk in front eased her way in at half-speed, but as soon as she cleared the threshold, shoppers overtook her on both sides as she was swinging at them with her cane.

I stopped alongside her (because I can) and said she was a despicable human being who ought to stand closer to a salad. She told me to get the fuck out of her way, and quit talking to her.

OK, we'll call that one a draw.

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