Black Friday

I read, reread and re-reread my shopping list this morning as I went out to Wal-Mart. Water, batteries, jigsaw puzzles, fabric for my next quilting project, flares, Kevlar vest... okay, I'm kidding about most of that. But I did go to Wal-Mart getting last minute things to prepare myself to barricade myself in the house from Friday through next week.

Because there is no way in HELL I'm going out in the Black Friday post-Thanksgiving madness. No fucking way.

Call it one of the perks of being a stay-at-home mom. I don't have to work and endure the insanity. I can just kiss A. goodbye as he leaves for work, lock the door, and wait for the madness to subside. While toting around a shamelessly adorable baby could hypothetically work in my favor in battling through the crowds -- really, who will challenge a mother with a wailing child? -- I really have nothing I need to get. Hate me now, but most of our Christmas shopping is finished. (I'm home all day. I have nothing better to than abuse my husband's credit card as I eBay and wait for the gifts to come to me.)

My aversion to Black Friday began at a young age. I believe I was a genetic experiment bred to be my mother's supreme Black Friday weapon -- tall and lanky with long legs to hurdle over slow moving obstacles and still see above most of the crowd, with blinding puma-like speed. My mom would map out the battle plan of Wal-Mart, Sears, and Best Buy, and tell me where to be and when -- then would unleash me at the doors and pray for my safety in the field of battle. I fought for Furby. I tussled for Tickle Me Elmo. By 12, I was a decorated Black Friday veteran. If there was a bronze star for Black Friday wars, I would have earned it tenfold.

But I really fully realized my hatred of Black Friday when I had to work retail -- Old Navy, no less -- on Black Friday. Holy shit. You go into those stores and you shoot brief looks of pity at the tired, weary cashiers' faces -- trust me, the look of exhaustion does the bearer no justice. I still remember the end of Black Friday, when the doors were finally locked, and the employees all stared at each other, then slowly turned our heads to face the chaos that remained for us to clean up. It was like the ending of Apocalypse Now. We lost some good cashiers that day.

No, really. It was like something straight out of Dante's Inferno. We're not talking about a few shuffled piles of sweaters. I'm talking, there was a gaping, fiery entrance to hell in the middle of the women's department. We started separate piles for "Sweaters Without Tags," "Trampled/Damaged Goods," and "Unclaimed Children."

And none of this is even touching on the behavior of Black Friday shoppers. It's like complete fucking anarchy. All rules of courtesy are out the door -- to fellow shoppers, and especially to employees. I don't care if the sign said 80% off -- first, this place has been such chaos that I'm pretty sure that coat was in the wrong pile. And second, look, lady, I've been up since 5 a.m. and it's now 2 p.m. -- and in the seven hours I've been working, I have had countless bitches just like you ripping me a new asshole over a matter of pennies for cheaply made shit made by sweatshop children. And trust me, nobody actually wants this shit anyway. I'm just doing my job, and I'm not even paid enough to deal with your tirade. Take your fleece pullover, which you're buying for your niece that you hardly know, let alone know what she likes, because if you did, you'd know that it isn't this cop-out of a gift, and shove it up. your. ass.

And in the madness of all the shopping steals and deals, would you really expect people to be trying things on? Yes. Yes they do. And apparently in the rush of shopping, many are unable to be troubled to find a bathroom, because working on Black Friday, I found human dookie -- grown man-sized dookie, not even small enough to maybe be pardonable as child-sized dookie -- in a fitting room. Black Friday was also the day of the year we were most likely to find urine- and feces-stained pants stuffed in random crevices throughout the store. I unhappily happened upon FAR too much human waste on Black Friday.

I lost what little faith I had in the human race on Black Friday, bit by bit, year by year. So when Thanksgiving wraps up, the leftovers are stuffed into the fridge like a tetris puzzle, and I pass out soundly in bed, visions of night terrors and angry mobs dance through my head. And because of that, I embrace my not-so-inner-anymore hermit, and barricade myself in the safety of my own home as I wait for A. to make his way home from the front lines of his record store...

... at which point we will sob over the destruction of the human race together, drink heavily, and watch some porn. Maybe. Who knows. The world is my oyster, because I don't have anywhere to be on Friday.