Hello Bonnyville! It's been a while since I felt so strongly about a topic that I felt it necessary to air my grievances in a column, but with the ridiculous scenes emanating from across the world as a result of a certain ‘day of sales' last week, I felt it was time to jump back on the horse.
Of course, I'm talking about Black Friday. For years, Americans have celebrated their Thanksgiving holiday by gathering everyone they know and going out in packs the following Friday to snatch up whatever ‘deals' are being offered by all the different stores.
This year, Walmart dropped the price of the new iPad 2 from $499 to $449, Sears offered deals on the brand new Playstation 4, while one New York Hyundai dealership was offering crazy deals on a number of their cars, with one of its ads reading – ‘Dad, we can save $7,500 on a brand new Hyundai, and, get this, if we get there early on Friday we'll also get a $1,500 American Express gift card thrown in.'
Sure, that sounds awesome right? Well, to actually get to the store ‘early on Friday' as the ad suggested, you would likely have needed to miss Thanksgiving altogether and start camping out front of the dealership three or four days in advance.
Still, having watched numerous news reports and even more videos on YouTube highlighting just how insane and wild people will get over the possibility of saving a few bucks, I find myself wondering how on earth people put themselves through this on an annual basis.
Like I pointed out earlier, the ‘sales' offered by the different stores are more often than not very underwhelming, yet people are more than willing to put themselves, their family and more worryingly, complete strangers in danger to save some cash.
Reports emanating from Chicago state a police officer shot a suspected shoplifter driving a car that was dragging a fellow officer across the ground at a Kohl's department store. One woman used a stun gun on another as a fight broke out at a shopping centre in Philadelphia, while a shopper in Las Vegas who was carrying a big-screen TV home from a Target store was shot in the leg as he tried to wrestle the item back from a robber who had just stolen it from him at gunpoint.
There were more shocking scenes across the country, with several videos showing literally thousands of people flocked and waiting outside several stores for opening time. Perhaps the most concerning of the reports coming in off the back of Black Friday stem from a stabbing in Virginia. According to a report on BBC News, two arrests were made after a man was stabbed in an argument over a parking space at a Walmart.
After travelling to Lloydminster for a day of shopping on Saturday, I made the mistake of thinking I would actually be able to dip my fingers into the Canadian version of the grandiose sale. Unfortunately, I was told almost every electronic item, other than the outdated Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 had completely sold out.
This is my first year really looking into and seeing just how destructive Black Friday can be. If it's getting to a point where literally hundreds of people are being hurt, some even killed, as a result of stores offering semi-decent deals on luxury items people don't even need, then it's time to pull the plug.
No deal, no matter how good it is, is worth a stint in the hospital, or even worse, the coroner's office.
