Grants & Fundraising – Fundsnet Services Blog

This year, unlike past years, I decided to partake in the Black Friday activities by going to the local mall and see what Black Friday was all about – Big mistake!

First let me say that the temperature was around 40 degrees and a constant rain (cold at that) that would not stop until about 4 that afternoon. As usual, my umbrella was at home, dry, warm and toasty. When you are born in a warm climate country with a mean temperature of 80 degrees year around, and where one of the most popular things to so is go to the beach on Christmas and New Year’s Day, when you experience ANY temperature below 79 degrees you are cold regardless of how many layers of clothing you have on!!

So on Black Friday early morning I decided to venture to the local mall where I arrived at 4:30 in the morning, only to discover that I had been beaten there by about 8,000 women who seemingly drove two cars each to the mall. So after finding a parking spot – a very difficult proposition, I proceeded to walk past Walmart and go to the farthest store in the mall first – that would be Kohls. As I walked past Walmart I noticed that State Troopers were out in force to prevent problems with the huge crowd.

I walked into Kohls and the first thing I noticed was that the line to the cashiers was extremely long – but since I decided to experience Black Friday I would have to endure. I picked up 3 or 4 things and proceeded to wait 40 minutes to pay for the item. It is worth pointing out that there were only 3 other males besides myself in a crowd of about 500 people. I suppose women rule Black Friday.

After returning to the car to leave the items I had purchased, I headed for Walmart where I found hundreds of people lining up to pay for merchandise – it seems to me that Walmart never has sufficient cashiers to handle the customers. Again I picked up 3 or 4 items and headed for the “20 items or less” line, only to find out people on line with carts full of merchandise (way over 20 items). At this point I thought to myself – “either people do not know how to count or do not know how to read…”

I again waited for 35 – 40 minutes to pay for the merchandise, walked briskly to the car since the rain was still coming down pretty good and returned home swearing I would never participate in a Black Friday event in the future – never again!. I will stick with purchasing online and avoid these crowds that gear up all year just for this day.