Seven Days to Black Friday

Everyone there are now seven days until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The day when we should all be in a turkey, mashed potato, and pie induced comatose state. Yet some of us, yes perhaps even you, may secretly be planning on waking up at 3am so that you can can carry over the Thanksgiving spirit of gluttony one more day. The difference is that you are anxious to spend several hundred dollars, because according to the advertising propaganda you are going to save hundred of thousands of dollars by shopping on this holiest of holy capitalist's holiday.

My question to you is: Is it really worth it? I have been guilty of shopping on this weird, mysterious day only once. I bought a new TV, and to be honest I got it at 50% off. It was a great deal, but was it really worth it? Let's do an opportunity cost analyze of this TV. To begin with, my saving were $200, so in order to make the TV worth it, I needed to save at least that much.

1. $50 I had to wake up way too early. Now getting up at 3:30am hurt. I'm only saying $50, but in all honesty, I think having to get up that early on a Saturday is worth much, much more.
2. $15 I waited in line for an hour and a half. Again, I really think that my time is worth much more than this, but I don't want to already be at $200 by line 2.
3. $10 It was freezing cold. My toes and my fingers go dangerously close to frostbite. If they hadn't have opened the door five minutes early, then I would have lost them.
4. $25 The TV that I really want was gone. In fact it was gone before I even got though the front door. The darn TV was all sold out before I even made it to the line (which was 3 blocks long when I got in it).
5. $30 I suffered at least this much mental anguish to watch a whole bunch of punk teenagers just walk in the door without waiting in line. The employees didn't stop them. I think that they were friends with those punks. You can't let your 15 best friends skip over 500 people waiting in line! That was WAY not fair.
6. $50 Combat Pay. I will tell you what. I thought that I was going to have to dodge deranged, sleep deprived soccer mom hopped up on hot chocolate. To my ultimate surprise, it was a Japanese families that got me. Mom, dad, put-out teenager, and GameBoy toting lad were all over me to make sure that I didn't try and buy their plasma TV before them. Obviously they didn't realize that I won't be able to afford a TV like that for at least another 50 years.
7. $25 Being stuck in line behind a complete moron. I swear that this was the dumbest person that has ever lived on the earth. She had a TV, DVD player, Video recorder, and a computer game. It was about two thousand dollars worth of items. The cashier was busy flirting with her, so he took about ten minutes to ring up all of four items for her. Then when it came time to pay, she didn't have any money. I understand not having that much cash on hand, but come on, at least write a check that will bounce and let the rest of us go home. The line is now 25 people long, and the girl is just standing there saying, "My dad must be here somewhere..." I'm sure that it was true, but there were also about 10,000 other people in the store, and the fire marshal was probably on his way, too. Then the cashier got her phone number and asked her to make room so that he could check out the next customer. He better have gotten a date out of that.
8. $15 After I paid for the TV, the cashier told me to go stand in another line to actually pick my TV up. I stood in a large blob of people, who were all told the same thing. We waiting in confusion for about half an hour. No one ever came to help us. We just stood there like sheep hoping that eventually we would get the merchandise that we paid for. I went to ask another employer for help. He told me that TVs were actually picked up in the back of the store.
9. $20 I went around to the back of the store, and I walked into their storage area. No one was there, but there were several extremely nice High Definition TVs. I was sorely tempted to take one of those. After all, an employee had told me mine was back here. Before I could take what was rightfully mine, another employee came up to me to tell me that my TV was actually back in the front of the store (The back pick up was for richer families, like the Japanese one that had assaulted me earlier. In fact, I saw them picking up their plasma).
10. $15 I finally got my TV, but no one told me how stinking heavy it really was. I hurt my back carrying it by myself, and I almost had 3 heart attacks when I came precariously close to dropping the TV that I now no longer wanted.
11. $10 Because I didn't get the TV that I originally wanted, I had to settle for another one where I had to send in for a rebate. I promise you that waiting 6-46 weeks for a rebate is at least worth ten bucks.

Okay, I saved $200, but I lost $265, which means I ended up losing $65 worth of pain and terrible suffering.

Please, everyone, just stay home. It isn't worth it!