Midnight Shopping - Black Friday

I have been in United States since 1999. It HAS BEEN almost ten years and I have never been to a Black Friday sale. I am not sure what Black Friday stands for, but one thing I can say is that it is associated with great discounted prices. Usually I went SHOPPING on Fridays around 11 AM or sometime in the afternoon. Most of the sale items were vanished by the time I went So this year I decided to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

I planned to accompany a friend of mine this time. Kash has been in THE states for ages. He knew ALL THE ins and outs of THE Black Friday deals. He always went to these events at timeS to shop and at timeS to have fun, so we decided to DO SOME shopping but mostly FOR fun. Instead of going at midnight, this time we left the house around 3 AM. We decided to go to NEW HAMPSHIRE BECAUSE most MASSACHUSETTS residents shop in Salem,NEW HAMPSHIRE. We reached there around 4:00 A.M. We drove around to see the impact of THE worsening economy. There were lots of people in front of Circuit City and Best Buy. The lines were long, but to Kash's surprise this time the length of line was no match to previous years. It was evident how bad THE economy made people stay at home. The longest line was at a Kohl's. Clothes were cheaper to begin with and this Black Friday bargain made THEM even more affordable I guess. After driving around, we went to Walmart. I am glad it was open 24 hours so we didn't have to stand in line in the cold. There were various stations in the Walmart where all the Black Friday Bargain items were stocked. Some of the electronics SUCH AS plasma TELEVISION SETS, DVD, and LCD TV's were placed at a separate location. We scouted the lines and items, and finally decided to GET in line for A Laptop. The Black Friday Shopping was supposeD to staRt at 5:00 A.M. At 4:50 AM they allowed the people in THE electronics section to choose the items they wantED. That was it! I heard a roar, thump AND thunder! pEOple STARTED running, and screaming. ThIS is a typical scene that you can imagine when a food distribution line opens up in SubSaharan Africa. You can see the chaos as hungry people are fighting for food. But this is America, and it was just electronic stuff not food. I WAS IN Pakistan in 2005 after the earthquake that killed about 85,000 people. Our medical relief camp was next to a distribution center. At THE time, THE police had to charge with batONS to keep order. There was chaos everywhere. It was the same picture either in Walmart, USA or in School Soccer playground in Gahri Dupta, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan.

Realizing the situation, we moved out of the line and walked around and away from the crowd. We CHANGED our strategy from shopping to having fun in watching people. Kash's mom WAS with us. We had her stand next to A pole which was supporting the roof. This WOULD protect her in case the crowd was to GET out of control. Kash picked up some stuff here and there. At 6:00 A.M. we decided to try other outlets. We went to Best Buy. There were still many "steals", but we did not need anyTHING. Later we visited Circuit City, checked stuff around and inquired about the laptop if it WAS still available. Lucky FOR us IT WAS. The laptop we got was the last one. Not bad for somebody who walked into Circuit City at 7:00 A.M. Friend's DVD's were also on sale and we picked up six out of ten season. Why did we not buy the remaining four seasons? Simply because they were not available. After Circuity City we were tired and drove home.

So you think OUR shopping spree WAS over? Well not yet, remember we only had six seasons out of ten of Friend's DVD's. We went home, had breakfast, and relaxed. We all were so sleepy but the spirit of shopping was still alive. Finally around 12:30 PM, I gathered the courage and called my favorite teacher - Mr. Coleman. At timeS I call him Dr. Coleman. He sounded disappointed but I guess he had NO choice. He was nice to allow me to skip my English lesson for the day. I promised him that I WOULD write a blog.

So the shopping continued. Half of the crew was left behind. Kash and his Mom were tired. His sister HAD to get the DVD's and I had to enjoy the shopping spree, so we went to another Circuit City, this time in Burlington, MA. After digging through the piles of DVD's finally we were able to find our remaining four seasons of "Friends". If you don't know what "Friends" is - well google it and you will know. It was a comady TV show that was on air for ten years. At around 3:30 PM we went home. I took A 30 minute power nap, had dinner, and drove back to Worcester. So you are thinking the Black Friday experience is over? Hmmm, not yet. On my way home I dropped by Best Buy. They still had another laptop and one of my friendS wanted to buy one. I went ahead and bought it for him. He still HAS to come to my place and GET it or I will drop by his place sometime next week and drop it off.

WELL, this was my experience on Black Friday!THE LESSON LEARNED FOR ME IS not to go out again at that WEIRD time. It's not worth it. You can save some money but THE effort involved is too much. Instead I WOULD rather work that night and buy the stuff the following day in A more relaxed environment. If you never experienced Black Friday madness, at least give it a try. After writing this bloG, a long one, I am assuming I will be getting a large regular coffee with cream and sugar. I think A large coffee will be too much so A mediUum coffee is fine for me.