I’ve never understood Black Friday.

Perhaps its partly because my tolerance for shopping is fairly low. I mean I’m a female and I do love shopping, but honestly after an hour or two I’m done and ready to go home. Particularly if there are a million people milling around and not paying attention to where they are walking. (When I shop I have a mission and know where I’m going – so please walk your super slow line of people in front of someone else.) And Black Friday is the worst example of shopping in my opinion. Every year I roll my eyes at the ads and commercials for the big sales. And the kicker this year? Stores started opening on Thursday night.

I’m sorry, but isn’t Thursday a holiday? The holiday where we are supposed to be thankful for what we have? But lets hurry up and eat dinner so we can stand in line for an hour outside Target before the doors open at 9:00. Geesh.

A friend of mine used to go Black Friday shopping religiously. A few years ago she talked me into going. (This was before stores opened at 9pm Thursday). After Thanksgiving dinner I took a couple hour nap and we met at the Outlet malls before they opened at midnight. Now the outlet malls weren’t so bad. Crowded yes, but since there is plenty of outside room its easy to get away from the crowds if you start to feel claustrophobic. Plus there were chick fil a booths outside – and anything selling chick fil a is a winner in my book.

Next in line was Kohls – their doors opened at 4am. If I remember correctly we got there about 330, and the line to get in the front door looked to be a quarter of a mile long. I could be exaggerating a little, but considering it took us 10 minutes of standing outside to get in, it certainly felt that way. The store was a mess. There were clothes everywhere. And by the time we were ready to check out, the line wrapped around the store. I don’t even like to wait in lines for rollercoasters.

Seriously.

Target after that was less crowded probably because it opened about the same time as Kohls and so all the crazies had already filed out. Post shopping chick fil a made it all worthwhile and I think I finally crashed at home around 6 or 7 am.

While I’ll admit that all in all the experience wasn’t bad, I’m in no hurry to repeat it. Quite frankly, its just too many people in one place – and we didn’t even go to WalMart, where you seem to hear about all the stories about tramplings and shootings. People somehow go from being thankful for their lives to total monsters willing to run over whoever they want for that $300 television. That is crazy.

So to you, Black Friday, an Ode: (limerick style)

Lord, I am so thankful you see

For all the good things you’ve given to me

Bless this food I’m about to eat

But do you think, for an extra treat?

You could hook me up on the deal for the 50″ TV?

Amen.