Friday, November 23, 2012

Splat-ter of the Week: The Black Friday Mob


I don’t have to be stateside to know who’s making the biggest splat this week. It’s the Black Friday mob, hands-down.  (Actually, this is more of a hands-up crowd, because you can’t split someone’s lip over a toaster with your dukes in your pocket.)

Moments after a good ol’ fashioned waist-busting on Thursday, they’ll make tracks for a Big Box and some good ol’ fashioned door-busting.

As citizens watch the economy shrink, their appetite for the deal expands. (It’s tempting to blame Congress for this, but the origins of Black Friday shenanigans can be traced back to prehistoric times. Anthropologists have uncovered drawings that depict cavemen, post-feast, clubbing each other at dawn over limited quantities of full-sized mastodons at half-price.)

Retailers fed the beast this year by opening as early as 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving. That might've been good enough for 2012 but in another 365 days, the beast will want more. Sooner. Cheaper.

Black Friday stories have always been about the numbers and they still are.  But revenue figures don't grab the headlines anymore; crime statistics do.   Last year we heard about a grandfather who got knocked out in Arizona (never mind that he might have been shoplifting), patrons who pepper-sprayed each other in California, and fisticuffs over $2 waffle-makers in Arkansas. 

The beast, like much of the country, is destined for morbid obesity unless somebody hurries up and gets it a lap-band.


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