Has it Gone Too Far?

By Brianne Garcett
After eating a huge Thanksgiving dinner, it’s time to get out your tents and folding chairs and line up outside stores waiting hours for the so called best deals. Every Black Friday, hundreds of thousands of people wait for those doors to open to get their hands on the two hundred dollar flat screen televisions, but is it really worth it? Over the past couple of years, this shopping has gotten out of hand; it’s becoming a holiday itself. Are the deals that great where you’ll battle these huge crowds and risk your life?
Within the last three years, many people have become crazed. They will wake up at three in the morning or sometimes even camping out outside the store for the night to get the best deals. Right when the doors open to these stores, that’s when the madness begins. In Buffalo, a man was trampled by a crowd rushing into Target early Friday morning. The man was screaming and yelling for people to back up, but these insane shoppers quickly scrambled over the man and into the store. People haven’t learned from much publicized, infamous death of a Wal-Mart employee that occurred in 2008 on Long Island. Frenzied shoppers literally pushed and ran right over him without even caring enough to stop and help him.
Not only having to wait for the stores to open, waiting on the lines for two hours just to purchase the gifts is a hassle. It’s like sitting in the waiting room of the dentists’ office waiting to be called in to get your tooth pulled. Normal civilians turn into monsters when waiting on these long lines, such as one woman in Wisconsin who was arrested after threatening to shoot anyone who dared to cut in front of her on line.
The day that is supposed to be meant to fully digest the large amounts of food you ate the day before has turned into life or death situations. Are the deals really that unbelievable that people will do anything to get that television or piece of clothing at a bargain?