Ever wonder where the term “Black Friday” originated from? Although the term originally described a stock market crisis in 1869, one theory for the modern usage suggests it comes from an informal reference used by police and transit workers in Philadelphia and dates back to the mid 1960s. Another theory suggests that the name implies the profits stores expect to make on the day while a third suggests it comes from retail workers because it’s the busiest day of the year.
For Rock Springs residents looking for a steal of a deal at the local Wal-Mart, Black Friday more than lived up to its name.
The store was open all day Thanksgiving day and past its normal closing time of midnight. This was done in a response to a fatal trampling that occurred last year at a Wal-Mart in New York. At midnight, store workers brought pallets of items out and placed them along the store’s main walkways. A few shoppers I spoke to talked about being at the store when the merchandise rolled out at midnight and waiting around until the Black Friday sale went live at 5 a.m. Multiple shoppers also said that they were explicitly told to not touch any of the Black Friday sales items until 5 a.m., or they would be booted from the store.
The limited big-ticket items, such as the 50-inch HDTVs that were being sold for $600, were sold on a first-come first-serve basis. The first people to arrive for the television sets were given vouchers to buy them when the sale started.
I arrived at the store at 4:30 a.m. to see the entire Wal-Mart parking lot filled with vehicles. People desperate for a parking spot parked at the nearby Mirastar gas station and along the road leading from Wal-Mart to Gateway Boulevard. When I walked in, there were masses of people standing around islands of boxes, tightly wrapped in clear plastic, mostly containing toys. The real mess was near the electronics section of the store.
For some reason, I don’t think the word “mob” adequately defines the mass of people standing around in electronics. The best way I can describe it is by likening it to a video game. On the Xbox 360, there’s a zombie survival game titled “Dead Rising,” which takes place in a mall. Often, there are situations where you need to go somewhere, only to find a huge group of zombies standing near a store and in the way of where you need to be (the game can have up to 800 zombies on-screen at once.) When I turned the corner from the grocery side of the store and looked towards the electronics section, I was greeted by the sight I thought I’d only see in that game; 300-400 people standing around, waiting for 5 a.m. to come. Walking through the mass of people I heard some people talking about their gift acquisition strategy while others were merely shooting the breeze, telling each other what they were going to do when they got out of this “mad house.”
When 5 a.m. finally came, people began to tear at the plastic wrapping binding most of the boxes throughout the store, much like their children will do come Christmas day. Wal-Mart employees, some of whom were wearing bright yellow-green vests with a tag saying “Event Staff” sewn on the back, were helping by cutting through the plastic with box cutters. In an instant, the situation began to resemble a full-on feeding frenzy, with people taking what they wanted from one pallet and moving as fast as they could to another before the next item would disappear.
In about 20 minutes, long lines appeared in front of the checkout stands, some of which extending well into the clothing department across from the stands. people, most of whom had baskets stuffed full of toys, clothing and gadgets that were soon to find a home under the Christmas tree. People were still coming into the store with hand-written lists of things they needed and some people were beginning to rush out of the store with their purchases, most likely off to the next stop on their shopping trip. An officer from the Rock Springs Police Department was standing at one of the exits with two store employees, on hand to settle a serious dispute and to guard against shoppers looking for that special five-finger discount. At that point, I decided to move on and left the store.
At K-mart, a long line had already developed in front of the store by the time I arrived at 6:45 a.m. It was frigid. My fingers and nose quickly began to tingle as I looked at a line that stretched from the main entrance, through the parking lot and almost to the convenience store across the lot. Everyone was lined up in a thin, orderly line. It was apparent that the store manager had laid down some ground rules as people began to show up.
One of the shoppers waiting in line, Justin Eastman, agreed to a short video interview before the store opened.
Justin Eastman invterview (using YouTube as I’m having difficulties uploading directly to WordPress.)
After the doors opened, people began to walk in an orderly fashion into the store. As they walked in, I decided to drive to the mall and take a look at how Black Friday played out there.
While it could be said that shopping at Wal-Mart could be painted with hues of chaos and, in some cases, desperation; walking into the White Mountain Mall a few moments after it opened seemed like walking into the mall on a regular Friday evening. Most of the stores, including the pretzel and smoothie shop, were already open and young women were handing out bright red, cloth gift bags to people walking through the mall. I picked up one of the bags and found a chocolate bar, a spatula, a set of blank recipe cards and some sales sheets inside.
After buying myself a new coat and some shirts, I left the mall and went home. The sun was just about to rise when I left, it’s glow was casting a flaming hue across the hills outside of Rock Springs.
