Black Friday: exhausting or exhilarating?

Once, I accompanied my then-girlfriend, now-wife, on her annual Black Friday outing. Every year for the past decade and a half, she and her sister have borrowed their dad’s SUV, headed out before the sun’s glow, and gotten back home well after dark. In between, they blast Mariah Carey’s Christmas album on loop and blow through most of the major big box stores on a mission to snag Christmas and just-because gifts.

My participation was a mistake.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy shopping for capital-T Things — in fact, I’ve had to work very hard over the years to combat a nasty impulse buying habit — but this kind of shopping is very different from your garden variety I’ve Gotta Go To The Mall To Buy Some Shirts shopping. To begin with, there’s the planning.

To get the most out of the day, you’ve got to do days of pre-Thanksgiving research into what items will be available, which stores are offering what kinds of deals, and so on. And then you’ve got to have multiple checklists — perhaps one for each store, and another indicating which stores you plan to hit up! And then you’ve got to coordinate with your shopping-mates so that the plan is both agreeable to all and so that you get through the day as efficiently as possible, because the worst thing is to miss out, amirite?

Again, I like shopping for Things, but… Black Friday is more attractive as a concept than it is to actually do. Is there a video game simulation? I might play it! But physically going through the process of planning and then executing the plan was more exhausting than exhilarating.

Worse, I’m the kind of person who tends to fixate on processes. As applied to Black Friday, that means noticing, again and again, strategies stores use to push customers to certain products, and getting hammered by the thought that maybe, maybe, maybemaybemaybe this isn’t actually the best way to put together a set of Christmas gifts for friends and family.

But for all of you who get a rush out of it, enjoy your Black Friday. And everyone else, enjoy Thanksgiving. Remember: dark meat is unequivocally tastier than white meat.

(Image cc-licensed: "Walmart - Black Friday 2008" by bisongirl)