Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving

What’s the big deal? Why “black friday”?

Because it is the day retailers go from being in the red (i.e., posting a loss on the books) to being in the black (i.e., turning a profit) according to this wiki article. And “friday” because it is the day after thanksgiving which falls on a thursday.

So after 6 years of avoiding every single “black friday”, I finally muster up the courage to brave the mall in my locality. Actually it’s two malls right across from each other. How original!

I start the day by sending the wife early, so I can relax and take a slow shower. I know I am not 12 anymore, but the heck with it, I love playing in the shower. So as I am getting ready, I get a call from the Apple store. It seems the part that I ordered is in stock now. Great, now I have something to do while I am at the mall amidst the thousands of other shoppers.

By 3 PM I am all ready and waiting for my cousin to come pick me up. He was on his way from a meeting and we decided to go together. We enter the mall from one of the least used entrances. Find ourselves a good parking spot in under 5 minutes. Great start. Easy entrance to both the malls. Even great! A quick call to the wife gives us our target coordinates. A 5 minute walk.

After about 2 trips up and down the “intended” store’s elevators, we finally spot my wife. We pass around a customary round of hellos, catch up on what items were bought, what needs to be bought all the while blocking the elevator entrance for the 5 minutes we were there.

We next headed up to the store and get some clothes for my wife. Immediately after which I insist we go to the apple store. After all, it was them who called me. 30 minutes later, I walk out with a brand new keyboard and the surrounding cover. All due to the fact that about 1 cm of the plastic on the edge broke off. How I wish everything in life had the same warranty coverage!! Sigh! It was back to reality.

After that we head up to about 10 other stores and bought more clothes. 6 hrs later I was exhausted. I got tired looking at my own clothes. And I got to thinking. This is not “black friday”!!! This is a marketing gimmick. Nobody has any real sale going on. It’s just a “friday”. I thank myself for having the entire weekend to recover and got the hell out of there.

And later, the best part of the day was the cheese fondue dinner that night.

What a day it has been. But one thing is for sure. I will never again in my entire life step foot in a mall on a “black friday”.

Oh btw, welcome home, my newest addition to the family. My precious… More on that later. Adios.