The Day After Thanksgiving

Apart from the derive that I took over Thanksgiving break, there was hardly anything truly extraordinary about my vacation.  However, I will admit for the first time in my life I became one of those crazy shoppers that wake up at 3:00 AM to get the best deals of the year on everything from kitchen appliances to big screen TVs.  My cousins and I decided that it would be a great idea to wake up super early, go get McDonalds for breakfast, and then head off to the stores to get Christmas presents for our loved ones.  

Believe it or not we did it, but thankfully nothing terrible happened.  Most of the people around us looked sane and there were relatively few people who were actually waiting in line to get into the stores as soon as they opened.  Sadly, I know this wasn't the case at all consumer outlets.  Many super stores like Walmart, Macy's, and Dick's had major sales that brought out large crowds during the early morning hours.  

Apart from being slightly ridiculous, I've decided that early shopping is just out right dangerous.  My proof comes from the horrible stories on the news every year about trampled employees and uncontrollable mobs.  This year was no exception.  A 34 year old Walmart employee was killed in Long Island as a result of a large crowd that rushed through Walmart doors in the early morning hours of the day after Thanksgiving.  It sickens me to think that people are so desperate to get a deal that they lose can lose sight of everything else, including a person they might be walking over.  However, everything goes back to the fundamentals.  Economists always have and always will preach that humans are... rationally self-interested, having no regard for others. (Maybe I should be a little more optimistic.)