Steve and I have never participated in the annual 'Black Friday' shopping madness, but yesterday a computer emergency took us to a local 'big box' store on the dreaded day after Thanksgiving.
Late in the afternoon, Steve's computer monitor failed suddenly. The screen started flashing on and off sporadically, showing nothing but narrow bands of the display that was supposed to be appearing there. This had evidently happened before, following a brief power failure over a month ago, but at that time Steve had been able to fix it with popular cable-jiggling and on-off switching techniques.
I came in from an appointment around 4:30 and personally tried the above-mentioned techniques to no avail. Guessing that the monitor must have been ten years old (it had come with an older desktop computer), we realized it was time for action.
On our way to the 'big box' store closest to home, we heard radio news of actual violence at an area WalMart, but we pressed on. I have never seen so many cars in the parking lot of our local mall. We circled two or three times before locating a space and joining the mob of customers entering the store.
In the 'tablet' computer department, there was a line of ten or twelve customers waiting to speak to a saleseperson, but what we used to call 'peripherals' for desktop computers were in much less demand. Still we had to snake through long lines waiting for help with trendier merchandise in order to find our target item: an $80 monitor that seemed totally compatible with Steve's desktop computer.
Safely at home once again, we installed the new monitor and made the adjustments necessary to connect speakers. Steve was ecstatic, watching TED lectures on a wider screen.
How many American consumers bought ONE item so quickly on Black Friday 2012 and enjoyed it so thoroughly before the end of the day?
Successful as we were, I hope we'll stay out of the stores on Black Friday 2013.
