Shopping early in the morn­ing on black Friday is more than a waste of time

Black Friday rep­re­sents the mate­ri­al­is­tic side of American soci­ety that shows its true col­ors on the national shop­ping day of the year.

All the “great deals” peo­ple get by wait­ing out­side in the cold at mid­night or in some cases, a few days before, is a waste of time. I just do not under­stand what the hype is all about. If you are will­ing to stand out­side in a line for hours to save a hun­dred dol­lars on a flat screen TV, then you deserve to save the money.

Standing in long lines and wait­ing out­side to shop is ridicu­lous. Maybe I feel this way because I’m a man and do not “under­stand” what it is all about, but shop­ping is one of my least favorite activ­i­ties and I would never sac­ri­fice sleep to par­take in it.

Generally, and I say gen­er­ally because there are men that enjoy shop­ping, Black Friday is a day designed for women to get their Christmas shop­ping done early and save some money in the process. What do the men do while the women are out shopping?

The NCAA has done men every­where a favor by sched­ul­ing col­lege foot­ball and bas­ket­ball games on the Friday after Thanksgiving to give them some­thing to do. Men are pretty sim­ple and watch­ing sports is one of the activ­i­ties that I par­tic­u­larly enjoy.

For many men, Black Friday is a day to throw the foot­ball around in the yard or rest from the mas­sive overeat­ing from the day before. It’s a day to hang out with the guys and be thank­ful you haven’t been stand­ing in line at JCPenny for the last three hours because a vac­uum was $50 less than normal.

This year, I spent Black Friday sleep­ing in and watch­ing some foot­ball. I did go shop­ping for a lit­tle while, but it was later in the day and the lines had died down sig­nif­i­cantly. Unless you are on the hunt for the lat­est and great­est gad­get, you prob­a­bly do not need to be at any store before noon. Many busi­nesses offer sav­ings all day long, which is per­fect for some­one like me, who is crazy enough to sleep in on their day off.

Avoiding fam­ily mem­bers you don’t par­tic­u­larly care for or spend­ing more time with the ones you do is also what most folks do on Black Friday. I have fam­ily that live in Missouri and I get to see them only twice a year at best. The extra day or two off at Thanksgiving allows the oppor­tu­nity to see them for longer than just one day.

Eventually, I may be stand­ing in a sim­i­lar line with my wife and I would be glad to do it. For now, how­ever, I am going to keep sleep­ing in and being lazy on my day off. I get along with my extended fam­ily very well and will gladly visit with them if it means avoid­ing the 5 a.m. crowds.