Black Friday 2009

I will start by saying that for the past 5 years or so I get up in the middle of the night and several of us head out shopping trying to stretch our pitiful Christmas budgets.

I have NEVER seen anything like yesterday.

We get there early so we have a chance at filling our lists. This year TRU opened at midnight rather than 5am. We arrived at 10pm and there were probably 30 people ahead of us. By midnight the line to enter the tiny store was easily a mile long. About 40 people decided to rush the doors at opening and a fight broke out just behind us between the door crashers and the early birds. It was so crowded inside you were in a deadlock, your only option was to have someone hold your cart while another snaked between people to try to get the items and bring them back to the "cartwatcher". At 3am we were nowhere near the checkout, so I was left behind as others went to the other stores. At Sears there were about 200 people at each entrance. I finally exited the TRU at 4:15 and headed to Kohl's. The entire lot was full and people were parking in the grass. We put my nephew in the checkout line while we shopped so we got through there pretty quick in spite of the craziness. WalMart had not a single cart left when we got there and we had to carry everything. There were 4 of us and we all survived, but I felt really bad for people who were alone.

I know the news has been drumming the failing economy drum, but until yesterday I guess I didn't realize the level of desperation that is out there. There are always crowds at these sales, but this year was at least 5 times worse. Plus, there were people pushing and fighting. It scares me to think what a bread line would look like if people were actually hungry.

Then I get home to see that the market is tanking because Dubai is bankrupt and wonder what this is all headed to.

I guess the retailers got their wish.

two lines

yeh,,,,,,times in america must be so tough when you have to stand in line to get that big screen tv...its no wonder your economy is tanking

hiya, i started a thread today, introducing 'buy nothing day', which neatly ties into what you describe. your post is a brilliant example for it...

best,
bertrand

There was no one in line for big ticket items. People were getting bent out of shape over cheap plastic $5 toys.

I have seen things get ridiculous over the big things before, but not the cheap stuff.

This is about the third black Friday post. What ever happened to searching to see if a topic has already been posted and adding your comments there? And whatever happened to the mods? Haven't seen one in a while.