Dear Crabby,
Do You Shop on Black Friday?
Sincerely, Hunter Diels
Dear Hunter Diels,
Seems like the holidays bring out the shopping questions all too much. I’ve tried shopping on Black Friday, it was horrible, and I’ll never do that again. All that yelling and running – I mean people have died trying to get in a store – no bargain or deal is worth that. I’ve tried buying gifts on the Internet, something called Cyber Monday. That too was a disaster. Shopping is just a chore.
What’s really crazy is the stores being open on Thanksgiving. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, boycott any retail store that opens on Turkey Day! I know some people have to work and some things need to be open – hospitals, police, fire – I get that. Yeah, and I understand restaurants, gas stations and movie theaters open as a service to others. However, no one needs to go shopping when you can buy that new TV or toaster any other day of the week. One of the grandkids is skipping Thanksgiving to go work at some dumb craft store. Who needs scrapbooking supplies on Thanksgiving when there’s turkey, football and pumpkin pie? I tell the kid, “You want me to talk to your boss, ‘cuz I have some words for him.” The grandkid tells me the boss is a woman, it is double time pay and they supply a full Thanksgiving dinner at the store. I can’t believe they get enough business to justify all of that. I heard on the radio that most stores open on Thanksgiving because their competitor is open. The report said that the sales they get on Thanksgiving are just sales they would normally get on Black Friday. So go to all the trouble to open on a national holiday, a big waste of time if you ask me, I don’t go shopping on Thanksgiving.
A couple of years ago I heard about this new thing called Small Business Saturday. It’s the Saturday after Black Friday and before Cyber Monday. It’s a marketing campaign to get folks to visit good old-fashioned local merchants. Now that’s a good idea. An idea put forth by a large credit card company in 2010. Nonetheless, it encourages shoppers to support small, local stores and that’s a movement I can get behind. So the answer is no, I don’t go shopping on Black Friday, I go on Saturday instead. Besides, with so many Thanksgiving leftovers, I need the next day to keep eating.
Enjoy the Holiday! Dear Crabby.
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