Now that America’s holiday of giving thanks for what we have, Americans are celebrating the holiday of buying what you want.

Let’s be completely honest, Black Friday is a day that every hard-core shopper spends weeks if not months in training for. And it always amazes me the amount of planning and dedication that goes into a successful Black Friday Hunt.

I think we should forget about the Thursday NFL game and instead televise the yearly Black Friday shopping visits.

Make it a season-long build up.

I could see the producers going to a few houses, choosing the Black Friday Tribute.

“I volunteer as tribute!”

“NO, it’s me. I volunteer as tribute!”

“You can’t be a tribute, you couldn’t muscle your way into the door first last year and cost Uncle Bill that big screen!!”

“If you had stayed up all night, I would have been closer to the door!”

That is how I would expect a tribute picking event to go. After that, I think that the training would involve body checking and grabbing. Or the quick grab out of a buggy. There would be tackling dummies on the training floor; the dummies the Army used to use to practice bayonet stabbing (Except here the shopper-tributes are stabbing people with the stylus pens on their smart phones)

Imagine the drill instructors.

“Okay maggots! Show me your shopping face!”

“ARRGH!”

“That is not a shopping face, it is barely a war face. Picture someone getting the last copy of that computer game your son asked Santa for!”

From the depths of the shopper-tribute comes a blood curdling scream, “DIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!”

All of this would lead up to the trip to the store after Thanksgiving breakfast. Why breakfast? It seems like my friends, family, and neighbors are having thanksgiving earlier and earlier to start their ritual pre-Black Friday activities.

I can picture the parking lot filled with tents and shoppers, them taking care of their last-minute details. Standing in front of fires, sharpening their credit cards, perhaps more than a few writing last minute emails and Facebook messages to loved ones.

We could hire Morgan Freeman to read a few as they write.

“My beloved Husband. We are camped just outside the handicap parking area, having lost that spot to a group of women in a U-Haul. You sister Becky was nearly run down in the melee, but the wounds were not fatal. I am not sure what will happen once the doors of the store open, but I will do you and the kids proud.”

Of course, we would need the appropriate Civil War era music.

“Grandma Kitty says that we are positioned perfectly to enter through the fire escape. The water cannons are primed and ready to repel any of our enemies. Try not to be sad that I have been gone since Halloween in preparation of Black Friday. Tell the kids that I love them and think of them often.”

And finally, 6 AM on Friday, the nervous worker at the door arrives to unlock the door for the shoppers. He is terrified as he approaches and hears the pounding on the doors by the people demanding the doors be open.”

Poor guy struck down in the prime of his life.

After that is pretty much a free for all. Shoppers leaping over displays, kicking over carts.

I picture evetime an item sells out, a cannon sounds and a picture of it appears on the ceiling.

The frenzy grows and grows as items sell out. Families are embattled, mother against daughter; neighbor against neighbor. Till the last must have gifts are sold.

I can picture a group of women grabbing the last Samsung big screen right before a larger group descends on them.

The lead of the larger group demanding that they be given the TV, “Give me the television and you will live!”

Only to be met with a defiant scream.

“THIS IS SHOPPING!”

After the fight in the Electronics aisle clears, and the shopper realize that the store has sold everything a defiant shopper cries,

“TO THE NEXT STORE!”

War and shopping cries ring out as shoppers rush to their cars to continue the battle.

 

Michael is a syndicated columnist and a self-proclaimed “recovering politician.” You can follow him at www.storyoveracup.com or email him at michaelcole@mail.com