Black and Blue Friday

The day after Thanksgiving is black friday. This is supposed to be the best shopping deals of the year. Why do people brave the crowds and put themselves through this? I ask myself this question every year as I come home with my feet and legs aching trying to hold my eyes open for the rest of the day. I have done this for several years and my reason is we need to save as much money as possible when shopping for gifts. I am not so sure about the others out there. I really think that it is the people that have money that are out there shopping. I showed up at 3:15 to Kohl's this morning thinking I had plenty of time before the store opened at 4:00. There were not any parking places. I had to go to the parking lot for the store next door. The line was all the way around the back of the store already. There were only 2 stores opening at 4:00 and the lines for the stores that were opening at 6:00 were already very long. The line at Chick-fil-a was the longest I think, which surprised me. I waited patiently in the 30 degree weather. When the doors opened, no one stayed in line and everyone rushed the store. The carts and bags were all gone and people were running around everywhere. I never found the 2 toys that I went to get but did get a great electronic deal. I am finished in 20 minutes getting back into my car thinking, this isn't so bad. I am actually ahead of schedule. The plan was to do Walmart at 5, Target at 6, Sam's at 7, Bed, Bath and Beyond at 8:00 and Goody's at 9. Now this all looked great on paper last night. I spent several hours mapping this all out and planning my morning. Now, where was I- Oh yeah, I was feeling great about being ahead of schedule. Off to Walmart.
I arrived at Walmart and was excited that the store was open and I didn't have to stand outside for 40 minutes. I went inside and realized that people had been standing beside of the items that they wanted for a long time. some of them had been there since before midnight. You couldn't get the items that you wanted until 5. I went to the area of the store that I thought would be the biggest challenge and stood in line for 30 minutes to find out that the items was not there they had moved it. I went to get in the next line. Over the course of the next 2 1/2 hours I stood there watching people break in line, people fight, people hit me with there carts and again wondering what am I doing? By this time however, I was in the middle of this mob and couldn't leave even if I wanted too. The police finally show up and organize everyone in 2 lines. That is great, but everyone has muscled their way into the front of the line at this point. They went in throught the middle. So now I am almost at the end of the line that I started out close to the front of. To make a long story short I got the last item that I was waiting for and everyone behind me was quite upset. Now to the toy section. Everything that I had gone for was gone. Oh joy, now what? By this time, I got something that I thought they would like and I hope it is OK. I have 3 more to buy for but not today. I did go to 2 more stores but did not do everything on my list. I had to get home so that Summers could go do some work today.
What happened to people? People were so mean to each other. They broke basic rules of society and didn't care. I am glad that Zander was not with me to witness this. When grown ups act like this, I don't know how we are supposed to teach them how to be nice to each other. I hope that everyone else had more success than I did.