Shopping Naked on Black Friday

Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor

4) Less Chance of Feet-Related Murder

It seems like every year we read about new and absurd ways people are getting hurt on Black Friday. From getting curb-stomped at Walmart to being stabbed at a Target, shoppers enter a dangerous battlefield when they choose to brave the arena of pre-holiday sales. And for what? A $199 50″ flatscreen? Spend the extra $45 and have it shipped. 

Or, since most sales actually last long past Black Friday, just wait a few days and pick it up after the rush has ebbed.

I worked in retail at a big box store for four years, and I learned to loathe the holidays. Not so much for the rush of people, as that actually made the day go faster for me. It was the way the quality of humanity dropped in time with the prices. Having PS3s on sale somehow meant that I was less of a person and could be talked down to like a 17th-century slave child. I was cursed at, threatened, and even physically assaulted during the holiday hours, and by people I’d helped before without incident. Something about the Christmas Muzak and big yellow sales tags flipped switches inside these shoppers’ brains. 

Why You Should Shop At Home

Everybody ships for free on the holidays. Amazon’s prices can certainly be matched in stores (at least, if they want to stay relevant and open), but that instant gratification has to be measured with absurdly long lines and downright criminal levels of surliness. Why waste time breathing in someone else’s Dorito burps just so you can have Call of Duty in your grubby mitts when you leave the store? Instead, order that online and wait a day–or even better, download it to your system in an hour and then you don’t even have to worry about the disk getting scratched. 

At home, you have the advantage. Anyone attempting to disrupt your play has to navigate the network of traps and puzzles you’ve set up around your man cave (or woman cave. Everybody games. Deal with it. #GatersBeHaters) Why set up a labyrinth around your TV and console? Well, what else are you gonna do with the extra 6 hours you didn’t spend at Best Buy? Read a book? Exercise? Nonsense.

Any shopping you need to do can happen while nestled on a beanbag chair near a fire–which is a terrible place for that type of flammable furniture. Heck, you can do it all from your phone while you visit the Porcelain Palace. I’ve made purchases on Steam while on hold with my cable company (which one? The bad one) and had it downloaded before they answered.

And it’s not just the dangers of other people you’ll avoid.