Saturday, November 26, 2011

Black Friday 'marred by violence'


Seriously?!
This morning I woke up and looked at the BBC news headlines as I often do to find the following headline “Violence mars US retail bonanza”! Now, for those that don’t know, which was me up to a year ago as well, Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving when all retail stores open their store hours earlier than usual (some even at midnight) with amazing discounts thus beginning the holiday shopping craze…
I avoided it by staying home, my wallet has been hit hard enough as it is with the move, it did not need any more unnecessary temptations! However, for some people, the financial crisis has really brought out their inner rage in bargain hunting:
According to the BBC “The start of the US holiday shopping season was marred by shootings and pepper-sprayings as bargain-hunters stampeded stores”. Stampeded, seriously!? One of the incidents involved a woman who pepper-sprayed fellow shoppers that were trying to get their hands on new Xbox 360s… that just gives a whole new meaning to crazy. Another incident involved a man being shot because he didn’t want to hand over his purchases to a robber that was waiting for shoppers outside a Walmart in California! Coincidentally, both incidents occurred at a Walmart…bad rap for them I’m afraid… or maybe just a bad rap for shopping!
How about this Christmas we go back to basics with gift-giving! My mom nowadays, for example, is only interested in three kinds of gifts: beauty products, food products or charity gifts…all three of which can be consumed without filling up the house with more unnecessary rubbish that we don’t need! How about making your own gift or Secret Santa with a limit on spending…this crisis has hit everybody hard, there’s no need to bring further violence into it just because your son must have the new Xbox 360, people!

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