Black Friday wasn't as black as it could have been

By Jessica Coleman

Staff Writer

   Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I worked until noon, and then thought I’d head to The Parlour really quickly because they had a sale and I have a hopeless addiction to the Lenny and Eva Jewelry they sell. 

   Otherwise, my goal was go straight home in order avoid the giant, roaring crowds of people just dying to rip my head off for a television or a stuffed animal that talks.

   That’s what Black Friday is, right? A free-for-all, like The Purge, but with merchandise. All bets are off, and people’s humanity goes out the window. Everyone becomes some sort of primitive savage, beating one another with clubs for 50 percent off electronics.

   That’s what I’d always heard. That’s what had always been presented to me in the media (I know, I know. I am the media, so this sounds weird coming from me). 

   As I walked out the door of my office, I remembered that my pet turtle Fluffy was out of food, and my stomach jumped into my throat as I realized I had to go to Wal Mart. On Black Friday. 

 

   Dun dun duuuunnnnn.

 

   Bravely, I entered the store, hyper-aware of my surroundings. Who knew what dangers lurked between me and the pet food aisle. I imagined it like a scene from a Romero film, every woman for herself, escaping the dangers by any means necessary; me, diving toward the turtle food, barely escaping the grasp of zombie-like shoppers. I expected hordes of barely-cognizant people blindly clamoring toward big signs that signaled Christmas sales.

   Looking around, I found... well, people filing neatly into checkout lines which were slightly longer than most days. I didn’t even sustain one injury. I even picked up a couple of gifts while I was there, happily not being physically assaulted. I waved at a couple of people I knew, who seemed perfectly coherent and not at all like I’d seen on every television station for the last three weeks. Someone even said excuse me when they bumped me in the toy aisle (gasp).

   Heck, it wasn’t so bad, so I hit up a couple of other little local shops here in town, and after saving quite a bit of money, I made it home to feed Fluffy her turtle pellets.

   Now, maybe someone, somewhere got a concussion over a discount flat screen, but after talking to some of my friends in various areas of the country, I’ve determined that it isn’t the norm in most places. The number of Black Friday horror stories are probably exaggerated because, well, for some reason, we really like believing the worst about our fellow humans. It seems like we want to believe that other people are materialistic and terrible, and we, the clearly superior sane people, are not. Maybe we need to feel “better than.” I don’t claim to know why, but for some reason, we love to believe that other people are awful and we aren’t. 

   Humans are funny. 

   In the end, I got some jewelry, my kiddo got a gift she’s wanted, nobody that I know personally sustained any injuries of any kind, and most importantly, Fluffy the Turtle got fed.