The commercialism of “Black Friday” alone is enough to make me want to
avoid it, but with modern online shopping it’s difficult to understand why
anyone bothers. I guess the special “in store only” discounts draw people in,
but I have a small family of thrifty people, so lining up outside of a Wal-Mart
doesn’t interest me much. However, Half-Price Books (HPB) had a black Friday
special that did interest me. HPB’s deal was that the first 100 people in line
at any location got a free reusable shopping bag with a $5 gift card inside
except for one “lucky” bag that had a $100 gift card, you got a coupon good on
black Friday only, and a free calendar with any purchase. Also, the stores
opened at 7:00am, rather than some insane 4:00am opening, so arriving at HPB
this morning was similar to getting to work early. I arrived at Richardson’s
small HPB at 6:40 (rather than the giant ware-house sized Dallas location that I
was sure would have 300+ people lined up outside) and got at the back of a long
line. Once we got inside the store, 4 people who had been in line after me
received free shopping bags: I was the 96th person in line!
During the 20 minutes I waited, I chatted with some of the other people in
line. There was a mother who’s teenage son had taken a seasonal job at the mall
and had to get to arrive at work at 3:00am that morning to get ready for the
rush at his store We talked about the sort of jobs we had had as teenagers, how
spending money took on a whole new meaning when you could price something in
terms of the number of hours you had to work at a crappy job. I mentioned that
I had grown-up in Illinois and had detasseled and pollenated corn for a seed
company one summer. A grandfather in line with his grandson mentioned that he
too was from Illinois (the Chicago suburbs) and had cousins from Iowa who had
done the same sort of work as teenagers. I unzipped my jacket to show my
Chicago Bears sweatshirt “Bear Down!” I said. The grandfather lived in western
Texas now but he was in Dallas because wife had had surgery earlier in the
week. I wished his wife well and said I hoped the surgery outcome was
positive. He said it was. His grandson looked to be of middle school age, but
was still friendly and talkative, rather than grumpy and sullen as many kids in
that age group can be. An African-American father and son were in line and
talking with the mother I had talked to earlier. The father looked well built
and strong and was wearing a jacket with the name of a Judo club on the back.
His son had on a letterman style jacket with the USA and Japanese national flags
on the back. I wondered if they practiced judo together and if the father was
an instructor, but the line started to move forward and I never got a chance to
ask.
I was almost sad to go into the store...it was fun chatting with people in
line. In 20 minutes I had found and island of humanity in the sea of black
Friday commercialism. I’m glad I went out this morning!
