D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

CONSUME!!! Throughout the years I have celebrated Black Friday as “BUY NOTHING DAY” (see site link) - but this year I went with my wife to make sure she didn’t get trampled by dumb hillbillies who have come down from their mountain perches to find the best deals available (or so the Germans would have us believe!)

Our story for shopping begins with the fact that our kids all wanted Nintendo DS’s. BUT they believed that Wii was out of the question because none can be found. Last night I checked out Sams Club website and found that Sams would have “Wii Family Bundles” on sale at their stores, limited one per club member. So I made an executive decision to make that our first stop to see if we could get one. I was expecting to see a line out the wazoo, but was pleased when it was just about 20 people inside the heated area of Sams Club. They actually opened about 10 till 5am and handed out Wii scanner bars to the people waiting for em– so like that, we were pretty much out of the store with a big Wii bundle. Hooray. We then scooted over to the Walmart super center place, and it was a madhouse.

This was the scene at the Walmart in Greensburg, PA, as I tried to make my way from Electronics over to toys to find my wife.

People packed through every aisle of that damn store as far as the eye could see. Without a cart, I was like a ninja scooting in and out while others waited with their loaded down carts.

One thing that baffled me at the checkout line, most people had carts full of crap that wasn’t even on sale! Marshmellow fluff and grocery items– it was as if people believed Armageddon was coming and were loading down on EVERYTHING as if it would be there tomorrow. I can’t really grasp the stupidity level I felt there. Maybe not for those people, but maybe that I was there in the thick of it witnessing the chaos– and I was nervous because I had a Wii Bundle hiding in the back our car. Did someone follow us from Sams Club to rob us!? oh noes!

It was still before 6am, so my wife and I decided to scoot down the highway to check out toys r us and Best Buy– what we witnessed there made Walmart look like a kiddie pool, there were lines waiting outside in front of both Best Buy and ToysRus at least a BLOCK long or more. Some lines stretched across parking lots, blocking traffic— we both let out an amazing “Oh my god! FUCK THAT!!!” And we decided to go treat ourselves to breakfast at Bob Evans. Mmmmmm…

While checking out there, we noticed those little “Remember When?” books with your birth year on it. My wife picked up 1979 and found this magnificent ad for SPAM. “How to make a Spam sandwich.”

Wow. That’s all I can say.

Happy Black Friday everyone.