It's Friday, FRIDAY!!!

It’s that special time of year - Black Friday (well, it was yesterday). The shops are guarded with trembling blue-shirts who unlock the gates to consumption, knowing that this could be the year they die. People who usually wouldn’t communicate come together, get close and bash each other’s skulls in for the best deal possible. Of course, Black Friday is not the best time to get discounts and items on sale. That would be months later when stores are trying to get rid of their surplus merchandise. Is that really the point? No. The point is to run the gantlet with the rest of the drooling, subhuman half-people in an attempt to get toys, appliances and technology that will be obsolete next year. Ensuring their chances at first place, members of the Black Friday cult even camp out over a week in advance.

Earlier this week I was watching the local news as they reeled the camera towards the smiling, idiotic faces of people camping outside of Best Buy. My first thought was “Don’t they have jobs?” and “Obviously the don’t! Why aren’t they looking for jobs? They’re just sitting there!” Of course, looking for a job would get in the way of securing a new iPhone or plasma screen TV. Who needs to work when these things can be paid for with EBT cards? 

The too boisterous for six o’clock in the morning reporter interviewed one of the breathing pods waiting in line. When asked what they were doing for necessities, the woman said they were having food brought in from family members. She went on to say they were using a near-by Starbucks bathroom. I’ve had to clean plenty of bathrooms and it’s disgusting enough during regular business hours. I can’t count how many toilet seats and bathroom floors I’ve encountered that were covered in urine, feces, vomit, menstrual blood, used condoms and tampons. Men and women in the general public could richly benefit from target practice. Can you imagine hundreds of people aimlessly defecating in a room the size of a large closet every day for almost two weeks? I wouldn’t be surprised if they threw away the mop and used a fire hose to clean it out. 

If vacant minded consumerism and a misfired mountain of excrement were the only factors of Black Friday this article would have been over by now. What really marks this day of days is the intense level of violence that goes along with it. This is especially nice for me. Year after year something happens to people on Black Friday that drives them to act on their primordial brain stem, crunch each other’s skulls to the linoleum floor and reaffirm my conviction that humanity is nothing more than a debased animal suffering from delusions of grandeur. In fact, past Black Friday’s have been so chaotic and violent that OSHA (Occupational Heath & Safety Administration) had to issue a manual of safety guidelines to retailers. I’m assuming retailers were targeted because they knew the actual customers don’t read. The guidelines listed are so self-explanatory they border on being satire. Here’s one tip from OSHA:

“When the store reaches maximum occupancy, do not allow additional customers to enter until the occupancy level drops.”

What truly makes this piece of advice so fantastic isn’t that someone thought about it, put it on paper and issued it to the public; it’s that somewhere, at some time, there existed a store that failed to make this rationalization. Though this is magnificently doltish, it’s not too surprising. Human idiocy knows no limit. I’m sure somewhere in the world someone is trying to start a car with a baked potato. 

Mayhem of the Past

Perhaps the most publicized story of Black Friday is that of Jdimytai Damour, a 34 year old seasonal Walmart employee in Valley Stream, NY who was trampled to death in 2008. A crowd of roughly two thousand mongoloid nerve-blobs rushed the freshly parted doors, knocking down Mr. Damour along with other employees. Police reviewed the surveillance tapes, but found the task of proving a guilty party too difficult from a legal standpoint. Some people even tried to say it was an accident. If someone’s face was under the heel of my boot, I’m pretty sure I’d know. Then again, I actually pay attention when things are happening around me. 

During a 2010 Black Friday Phillip Duggan, a 24 year old marine at the time, was doing a Toys for Tots drive with other marines and volunteers at an Augusta, GA Best Buy. At the same time another man, Tracey Attaway, concealed a laptop in his jacket. Store surveillance cameras spotted him. Attaway freaked, dropped the laptop and bolted when he was confronted. Duggan clotheslined Attaway during his attempted escape and got stabbed in the back for his troubles. Attaway was charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of a knife in the commission of a crime. All that and he couldn’t even get the laptop out the front door. 

In 2011 a woman outfoxed other shoppers by pepper spraying them. This happened at a Walmart in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. There were between 10 - 20 people who got a face full of spray. After vanquishing the enemy, she was able to pay for her merchandise and leave the store before the police arrived. She turned herself in one day later, but the police didn’t release her name, saying that the matter was still under investigation. As far as I know, she has not been charged with a crime. 

In 2011 a horde of people rioted for waffles. At a Walmart near Little Rock, AR a video of frenzied specimens fighting for $2.00 waffle makers was shot and uploaded to the internet. If you watch the video, try unfocusing your vision slightly. The crowd appears to be a gathering of half-human, half-sloth creatures engaged in a greasy orgy.  

In 2011 a person was shot in San Leandro, CA in a Walmart parking lot. He and his family had just finished their Black Friday shopping when they were approached by a small group who demanded that the family surrender their purchases. When the family refused, a fight ensued and one of the attempted robbers pulled out a gun and shot one of the family members. The shoppers managed to wrestle one of the assailants to the ground and held him there until police arrived. The rest of his crew fled the scene. If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, what made the robbers think there would be a free Xbox?

Yet again, in 2011, shoppers in Soho New York smashed the doors of a Hollister clothing store and began looting. Apparently, someone said the store opened at midnight and everyone else was stupid enough to believe them. When the store didn’t open and those trendy jeans stared back at the crowd through the windows, it was all a feeble mind could take. The crowd broke through the doors and released their inner slopsucker. 

Highlights from 2012

This year was not without it’s own incidents, which can always be expected when empty eyes set their sights on shiny objects. Interestingly enough, many stores are beginning Black Friday on Thursday, leading to terms such as “Black Thursday” and “Ex-giving.” Time truly makes fools of us all. A day that was once intended to give thanks for the things you have is now a day for bashing another person’s face to get what you want. I wonder what Christmas will be like in ten years?

Dumb People Riot for Smart Phones - Shoppers in a Moultrie, GA Walmart shove and knock each other down for phones. Watching the video makes me want to throw broken glass on the floor and yell “iPhone over here!” 

 Breaking Down the Doors - Roughly one hundred shoppers at a Santa Monica, CA Urban Outfitters smash the glass doors of the entrance while rushing to get in. You’d think people with one track minds would be able to walk in single file. 

Shooting for Space - Two people were shot outside of a Walmart in Tallahassee, FL  in a dispute over a parking space. If they were smart, they would’ve scouted the area in advance and set land mines on the desired spots.

Don’t Weigh Me Down - Perhaps the funniest in this year’s roster, several reports have come in regarding parents leaving their infants and toddlers unattended inside and outside of stores during this year’s Black Friday. Should’ve had that abortion. Kids only slow you down.

Making the Future a Better Place

Maybe it’s just me, but I was disappointed with the stats from this year’s Black Friday. Don’t get me wrong, it had it’s fair share of violence, mayhem and disorderly conduct, yet it felt as though something was missing, especially compared to 2011’s glorious destruction. The Romans had the Colosseum. We have Black Friday and it’s never going to be memorable if we don’t up the ante each year. How do we make an annual event so rife with greed and violence even more decadent and depraved? Glad you asked. I have a few ideas to make 2013’s Black Friday the best one yet:

• Distribute bottled water laced with 2C-I to everyone in line one hour before the store opens. 

• Adorn all store workers in knight armor wrapped with barbed wire. This will protect the store employee while seriously injuring the shoppers. Someone who’s working always has priority over someone who’s shopping. 

• Require stores around the country to replace their fluorescent bulbs with red strobe lights. 

• Pass out rusty gardening tools and pamphlets detailing vulnerable body parts to all shoppers. 

• Require all shoppers to wear a target on their chest and back. 

• Place a lottery to determine three stores in each county that will be tear-gassed during the height of the Black Friday feeding frenzy. 

• Play tribal war drums over the loud speakers in place of normal holiday music.

• Arm the entrance of the store with snipers. Anyone stupid enough to camp outside of a store for over a week deserves nothing. 

2013 can be a turning point in Black Friday history. With a little effort and creativity, we can solve the Black Friday problem and thin out the population of bottom feeders that go along with it. What about 2014? What will we do when there’s too few psychotic, scavenging shoppers left to make a decent Black Friday death show? Good question. It’s a common fact that the intellectually deficient have litters of babies. When the parents of these infants perish for the goodness of our entertainment there is only one course of action to take - Razor Blade Toddler Cage Match! Let’s see those sissy Walmart rioters compete with that.