Back In Black

I’m not gonna lie. I think the Friday after Thanksgiving this year might look a little different.  

If you’ll allow, let me tell you a little tale… 

I come from a relatively large family. My father has four brothers – three surviving. The first cousin count on that side alone is eleven. And due to most of those having families of their own now, we rarely see each other during the holidays. 

Serendipitously, one year saw the Florida arm of my family in the same house as most of the Charleston branch. After the cranberry sauce was consumed and dessert was served, my Aunt Carey retrieved a stack of newspapers from her car. Ads from all of the major retailers cascaded to the floor as she marked up the offers that she was going to take advantage of and tossed away those that were of no use. 

“Um… Whatcha doin’?” I inquired. 

“Making a game plan,” she responded.  

Christmas was just around the corner and her three boys and one daughter required a huge mountain of presents underneath the tree in just a few weeks. 

At least, in my memory they did. I’m sure I’m being hyperbolic. 

She had a couple of televisions, computers, and toys of all kinds adorning her massive shopping list. And when was this to take place?  

“Where and when are you doing all this?” After all, she was hundreds of miles from home.  

“We’ll be getting up around 2am and starting at Best Buy,” she answered.  

“2am?!” Cause that’s the only proper response to getting up that early to stand in any line for hours and hours for anything ever. After a slight bit of deliberation, I inquired, “Can I join you?” I had never done anything so… so… intense for something seemingly so unimportant.  

But she said, “yes.” And the game was afoot.  

Like Samwise Gamgee headed into the fiery pits of Mordor, I followed her around town from store to store in order to save pennies on the dollar. The best part about it? I had a blast. Dodging to and fro to avoid the stampede of opposition shoppers, waiting in another line to escape the store and then tossing my findings on a counter with the final total announced at a fraction of what it would be on any other day of the year. 

And—you guessed it – this has become an annual event for my friends and myself. What other time of year can you hear so many strange rumblings from half-crazed, fully exhausted shoppers? 

A couple years ago now, standing in what was the music section at a big box store, a woman mumbled to her daughter, “Hey! Have you heard of this artist Michael BUBBLE? He’s pretty good.” Laughs from my groups were hard to stifle over this interaction.  

If you are a people watcher? This event built to bilk you of your hard-earned cash has become a perfect breeding ground for the hyper weird.  

Now the plague of the most capitalistically of capitalism is that Black Friday was starting to invade the Thanksgiving holiday itself. Where you had to shuffle out of your home in the middle of the night in the freezing cold to queue in a line that wraps around the building in the vain hopes that you can grab one of the ten TVs supremely marked down to bargain-basement prices… in the past few years, you could just head out about five in the afternoon and grab whatever you needed leaving those you might not want to be around in the dust holding their third serving of turkey.  

I never loved this… Thanksgiving to me has been about being thankful for that we have and have had. Not for what we can have or possibly consume.  

In these times of corona, it seems the clock has been reset. Wal-Mart and Target have both announced they won’t be opening their doors this year on Thanksgiving itself. Maybe its cause of the bottom line. Maybe it’s the companies themselves being more responsible. I think you probably know the answer.  

Whatever the reason? I’m ironically thankful. 

Let Black Friday be its own holiday in between food and more food. I’m happier this way.  

So… as you sit together respectfully socially distanced from family that you may or may not like in general or people that you may or may not agree with politically in times like these… consider Marcie’s words from "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" from 1971 - "Thanksgiving is more than eating, Chuck. We should just be thankful for being together." 

I hope you had a phenomenal Thanksgiving and HAPPY HUNTING this Black Friday. 

~ Brandon L. Joyner