Crowds

I guess I should offer some explanation about yesterday's diatribe about Black Friday shoppers. It was a little over the top, a little stereotype-y, and a little unfair to those people whose lives revolve around that singular day after Thanksgiving because their particular form of religious worship has a magnetic strip and a security code on the back.  And since I consider myself irreverent and a-religious, who am I to question that faith? I realize all of this now, and upon further examination, contemplation and soul-searching, I am blaming that entire freaking blog post on the Wellbutrin.

Ha!  Had you going, didn't I?

I think my personal bias against the whole Black Friday "tradition" is twofold.  Firstly, it's all about the hype.  Every year, stores right and left give a limited number* of special deals* with the caveat that they will only be available at this price for a very limited time* while their limited quantities* last.  Now, I've marked with an asterisk every phrase that is specifically pointed at underscoring the OMG-urgent immediacy of the sale, and how you are rewarded for being among the first in line vis a vis the other, worthless, huddled masses further back in the line.  Not for being a good customer, or a consistent customer, or anything like that.  For standing in freezing cold for 8 to 10 hours awaiting this particular special hype-machined sale like mindless lemmings.  And that's total bullshit.

Hype, as we too well know, can be terribly dangerous, and should frankly be avoided at all costs whenever possible, just for the sake of common sense.  But hundreds-- thousands-- people don't learn that, and they let the stores jerk them around with the tease of a few dozen items "marked down" to the same price they will be in two months. And that's exactly what the stores are counting on... that people are stupid, greedy and priority-driven enough to wait around in the cold until they can herd in like pigs at slop time and join the chaos of hundreds of people fighting for dozens of items.

The second reason I hate the whole Black Friday "tradition" is that it draws huge crowds of people, and modern statistical analysis proves that the more people you gather into any reasonably contained space, the lower the group mean IQ level becomes, and the quicker the group becomes irrationally surly.  People wonder how the Romans could possibly enjoy gladiatorial games with their blood and death... I give you exhibit A... and B.... and... hell, you get the drift.  The Romans could have sent out pornographic poets and free oral sex and their crowds would have been bloodthirsty and ready to kill things. Every year around this time I get reminded of those wonderful holiday words delivered by Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black: "A person is smart; people are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it."

I therefore refuse to go to these Black Friday events, partially out of a sense of self-preservation; as I told my Lovely Fiancee™, I have every reason to believe that the first year I endure the Black Friday "tradition", it will undoubtedly be the first year that there are multiple gunshot, trampling, or stupidity fatalities at a Wal-Mart. It's only a matter of time.  Especially the stupidity ones... I'm sure at some point I will hear, "...Three drown in a Target bathroom.  Details at eleven."

I've learned very quickly that I am not generally a crowd person.  I get anxious and antsy and claustrophobic in them.  I think it says something about me that I prefer solitary hobbies like art, reading, writing and fish-keeping, that I enjoy playing golf, and that whenever we have our family gatherings I end up holing up in my room.  On top of that, I have a really low tolerance for stupidity in mass quantities.  In short, I cannot imagine a level of hell that would be worse for me than being among the five hundred people trying to fit into a Best Buy after six hours in the cold.  So I'll happily continue with my own "tradition" of shopping around online in my lounge pants, ordering gifts as early as possible, and praying that the 24-hour stores aren't crowded at 3 in the morning on a Tuesday morning for those last few things I have to get.

I guess, if nothing else, the good news is that I most likely only have a couple more years to deal with it.