Observation About Black Friday

          In my family, it is a tradition to go Black Friday shopping. I haven’t gone the past couple of years, but I decided that I wanted to go this year; however I had forgotten how hectic Black Friday is. Previous to going shopping, I had been talking to my boyfriend about it and he had been making fun of my mom for making a list of where to go, when the stores opened, and what she wanted to get from each one. If you don’t make a list though, it’s virtually impossible to get to everything. It’s twice as difficult because each store opens at different times and they all have different sales, so you have to walk in knowing what you want and you have to be able to leave really fast before the lines for the cash register get really long. Our family is not hard core Black Friday shoppers (for example sleeping outside the store the night before), but we got up at 2am on Friday. Personally, I love the atmosphere of Black Friday shopping because everybody is all happy and excited to be up and to get what they want/need. However as the day wears on towards the afternoon, people get tired and cranky, and that’s when it becomes obvious that the day’s over. Some people just get really rude, and it spoils the concept of having fun shopping and talking with other people as you wait in line. However the sales are usually alright, but these days the greatness of the sales have decreased, which causes me to wonder why people still continue to go shopping on  Black Friday. I mean, we are in a recession, the economy is down, people are unemployed, and yet everyone is out shopping and spending money. It’s quite contradicting. However, I think that the whole reason that people do it is because they need something happy in their lives, something to look forward to, when all the future seems to present them is uncertainty and sadness. The fact that us as humans do that, to me is like a little glitch in our system, however without it, more people would probably be looking at a bleak and dismal future and they would be left with no room to hope for improvement, so I guess glitches are best for the world!