Don’t Go Shopping on Thanksgiving Day

I’m ashamed to say that I did that very thing two years ago. Best Buy had some Blu-rays and some computer bullshit that I wanted and that were all drastically marked down for their big Satanic sale that started at 5 PM on Thanksgiving. What would have normally cost me $800 instead amounted to about $6.95 at the big sale, I calculated.

So, I did bad. I made the villainous decision. I sold out one of my country’s most important holidays. I danced with the devil by the pale moonlight. I went to Best Buy on Thanksgiving evening.

FIRST problem, the closest Best Buy to me had a line to get in that stretched out the door and wrapped around the building. It was The Rolling Stones opening for Justin Bieber live at Best Buy. I’m guessing that the store only lets people inside in increments mathematically engineered to prevent suffocation and trampling deaths in a stampede.

Parking was exactly what you’d expect. Nothing anywhere. I wasn’t about to park eight miles away just to wait in a long line in the cold with other assholes like me, so I left. And I drove to the next closest Best Buy. Why not? I was already dedicated to being a scumbag.

That Best Buy did not have a line, but parking was no better. I found a space at the Applebee’s next door and then hoofed it over to the store like a bitch, careful to not get hit by other dickheads like me prowling the lot for empty spaces.

SECOND problem, inside the store is Sardine City. Shit is packed. You can’t browse. You have to KNOW what you came there to get. And it’s almost guaranteed that a woman with a baby carriage, who can barely move around herself, will be standing right in front of your desired precious fucking items.

Meanwhile, everyone’s an annoying jerk. The Thanksgiving Day shopping crowd is dominated by people who would gladly litter if it wasn’t against the law. They’d throw their garbage right out their kitchen window.

Even the employees are gruff. None of them want to be there. They (rightfully) think it’s bullshit that they’re working retail on Thanksgiving night. Even the most perky Employee of the Month isn’t into it. It’s pretty much accepted that they’re going to be rude.

They WILL enforce the store’s special rules for this night like it’s federal law.

Do you think you’re going to get away with having your wife or your child or your dog hold your place in the two-mile-long checkout line while you do a little more shopping and then expect to cut ahead thanks to that?

UH-UH. That wasn’t happening at the store I went to, at least. You were not cutting ahead in line with merchandise in your hand. You were watched like a prison inmate. I saw two heated exchanges between employees and people who tried to pull this shit.

I don’t blame the employees, either. You get your revenge where you can. Fuck those scheming line-cutters.

THIRD problem, the checkout line. Though this is actually the least of your problems. The line chugs along faster than you think. That store wants you moving along and out of there. You are cattle in a herd. I remember thinking at the time that the line, which wrapped halfway through the store would take thirty minutes at least, maybe even forty-five. It was looooong.

In reality, I was probably in line for fifteen minutes, give or take a few.

But the universe wasn’t done fucking with me, yet.

At one point, I noticed that the guy in line behind me was shifting and bouncing up and down a little, looking uncomfortable. We made eye contact and he confided in me that he REALLY needed to go the restroom.

“Oh, just go to the restroom. I’ll watch your cart for you,” I said, feeling like a real sweet boy.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, go. It’s no problem.”

He thanked me and then zipped off to bleed the lizard. The restrooms were on the other side of the building.

It was maybe a minute later when a Best Buy employee motioned toward me, “Okay, you’re next. Register 4 (or whatever)”.

“Uh, I’m watching this other guy’s stuff,” I said. (Piss Boy hadn’t come back, yet.)

“You’re next. Register 4. You’re gonna have to put that stuff aside.”

And, indeed, he reached out and pulled that stuff aside and I went to the register and paid for my junk, feeling slightly guilty as my cheerful gesture to help a neighbor got flushed down the toilet probably at the same moment that said neighbor was flushing the toilet.

He probably had to wait in line all over again. And I have no idea if he got his cart back in that madhouse.

This leads me to your FOURTH problem, when it comes to opportunistic Thanksgiving Day shopping.

Short of death and injury, your fourth problem is that you DESERVE all of the annoyances that come your way. You deserve the long line. You deserve the impossible parking. You deserve the lady with the baby carriage blocking your line of sight while you’re trying to find that Apple product that you wanted. You deserve taking a piss break while in line and then having your cart full of gadgets be gone when you get back.

And you deserve feeling like an idiot when your neighborly deed in that stupid environment amounts to nothing.

Thanksgiving is for chilling out. Don’t shop. Don’t make people have to work. Don’t encourage retail stores to be open.

I’ll never do it again. I fucked up that one year and I learned my lesson.

Thanksgiving 2018 for me is all about drinking, eating well and watching Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder later tonight.

It’s Thanksgiving Day and I’m not sure where my car keys are and I don’t care.