How About Chartreuse Saturday?

Friday, October 13, 1307 was a “Black Friday” if you were a member of the Knights Templar and living in France. Seeing your heroes arrested, tortured and executed does tend to burn the day into your memory. September 24, 1869 was a “Black Friday” if you had any money in the stock market, thanks to the Fisk/Gould scandal. And, obviously, the destruction of the world’s gold market impacted regular folks as well. November 11, 1887 was a “Black Friday” if you were an anarchist hanging around near Haymarket in Chicago. Of course, being lynched by cops tends to put a damper on any day, not just Fridays.

Simply put, “Black Friday” has historically meant a day of tragedies. So why am I surprised, as I fast forward to our Twitter level knowledge of the world that came before us, that we now honor those mournful memories by setting aside a day dedicated to self indulgent shopping?

After all, we live in a culture where some people celebrate the death of their Lord and Savior by eating chocolate rabbits and wearing pretty bonnets. What’s a few minor tragedies compared to that?

Oh, go ahead and click the link. It has coupons.

Nevertheless, even I was a bit surprised to see a woman camped out in front of a Best Buy (Best Buy?) for the week prior to “Black Friday” just so her family could be first in line.

Best Buy? Really? Why not Quickie-Mart or K-Mart or something? What’s the allure of a Best Buy?

As Scott Wampler from the Examiner finds out, you can’t make this stuff up.

Some view Thanksgiving as a time for enjoying the company of their family, and some just think it’s an excuse to eat a big-ass meal (guilt-free). Others see it as an inconvenience. Then there’s those that ignore the holiday completely and view Thanksgiving as just another day before “Black Friday,” the most notorious shopping day of the year. Make no mistake: There is something very, very wrong with these people, as you’ll soon see. Read on for the crazy, my gentle Examiner readers …

There’s a video going around online today that you’ve probably seen, an interview with some woman who’s camped out in front of a Best Buy (as of last [Tuesday]) in anticipation of “Black Friday.” Anyone that would camp out for days in advance of a sale — even if the prices are pretty damn good, and even assuming that they don’t have anything better to do this week — clearly has some screws loose, but the woman’s explanation reveals that she’s even nuttier than you’d expect.

Here’s what she has to say (and note that we haven’t altered this; you can hear it all for yourself by clicking the video [below]) for herself:

As you can see, we’re first place … We’re just regular people. We’re not here first because we’re, y’know, planning on this, we have to have this, uh, big thing purchased. Of course we are going to shop like we do every year, but to us it’s more about being first, and having the whole experience about what this brings to you.”

What the hell does any of that mean? Did somebody tell this woman that shopping is a competitive sport? What’s with the “first place” talk, and why would it be about “being first”? Does any of this make sense to you? Let’s see what other pearls of wisdom this creature can impart:

We never knew that we were gonna be, we never thought we needed to be first, for any sort of firstness, just for our own firstness. To make ourselves happy, and that we accomplished something, our personal goal. That was never in our mind.

Say what?! What the hell is wrong with this woman, and why is she obsessed with the idea of being “first”? Is she an internet commenter? Anyway, here’s the thrilling conclusion to the interview, where Crazy “Black Friday” Lady takes the crew inside her lair (read: tent):

This is our tent here, that we have. We pretty much have everything that we need … there aren’t many ants in this area, so we’re pretty happy about that … we have our air mattress bed, we have our chair, our pillows and our blankets. I’m looking at one of the Apple notebooks … possibly a TV for our daughter … maybe a Blu-ray player and some movies. Thanksgiving doesn’t mean just that you have to go to somebody’s house and have a traditional turkey and spend eight hours a day enjoying a good meal and a family and going home and falling asleep on the couch watching football.

Well, that’s it, folks: We’ve already located the craziest “Black Friday” story and it’s only Tuesday.

First off, while it’s clear that this particular woman is clearly several bulbs short of a chandelier, she’s not alone. Thousands of people missed having Thanksgiving dinner with their friends or families so they could line up in the cold and throw their money away on crap they’ll never use.

That dancing robot you HAVE to have? Forget about it. Buy socks instead. Then use the money you saved to spend some time with sane people. Hopefully they’ll rub off on you.