Black Friday: It’s Not About the Junk

No One Camps out on Black Friday. The Lines are too Long.

I did. for the first time ever, and probably the last, my daughter and I camped out in front of Toys ‘R Us so I could save a whole $20 on a Zune. A Zune that I had already ordered from Amazon, but which wouldn’t be in By Christmas.

We saw the doorbuster price in the paper, and ecided that if she was game, we would spend the night together and try to get it. We did. We got the 6th of 29. We got a Spring Horse for the toddler, and a couple things for my nieces, and took off after it got too crowded to shop.

And we leaned a lot. We learned for most people, this was their Idea of fun. The family in front of us had people at several stores. they were constantly getting one or two people to go get coffee for the crowd. They were friendly and polite, and had no clue what they were waiting in line for. They were just out to save money and have fun.

And that was the same with most people we ran into. The savings were not why they were out. It was to spend time with brothers and sisters, talk about kids, make some memories and have outrageous stories to tell.

Like the guy who never got out of his truck except when the line started forming to say ” Just so there’s no trouble later, I was here first.”

Or the family at Best Buy who bring three full tents at 8:00 A.M. Thursday and fry their turkey in the parking lot. They Line up thirty people when the doors open, grab the tickets for the Door Busters, then sell them off to everyone else.

And there were a few of those. People who had no joy, no fun, no sense of the silliness of the whole thing. But they were few and far between.

It was fun. And it wasn’t about the junk.