Black Friday: THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

My very first job when I turned 16 was in retail. And let me tell you, people are NUTS when it comes to sales and clothes. I have three years worth of great stories (that I will probably write about later) of the crap people do. I've been hit by a customer, had to babysit kids while people shopped and had some child shove all the clothes I was folding off the table and declare the pile 'his fort.'

So, I'm well accustomed to the madness that is Black Friday. But when I recently got hired at my new job at AE (which I adore by the way, I buy WAAAAYYY too many clothes because their style is on point.) I had no idea what was in store for me...

Firstly, I found out that we were open THANKSGIVING DAY AT 9PM.
Who in their right mind leaves their families and Thanksgiving Dinner food comas to GO SHOPPING ON THANKSGIVING DAY? I mean it's bad enough WalMart changed their opening time to midnight- now they opened at 6pm? COME ON.
Guys there is something seriously wrong with this.
WAKE UP AMERICA.
Don't go shopping and punch out grandmas over a TV on a day where you just gave thanks for EVERYTHING YOU ALREADY HAVE. Isn't there something a little ironic about that, or is it just me?

At first when I heard about Walmart opening I was like, wow that's stupid, really. But it didn't really create too much of a stir in my heart, because it didn't really affect me directly. But once I found out lots of stores were opening including the one I work at-I instantly felt this kind of shaky rage come over my body. It was strange. I am a Black Friday shopper right there with you (when I can wake up early enough) but taking me away from my family so you can save 50% on a shirt that you want?

NOT WORTH IT TO ME. This is MY holiday too. My family and my food coma I needed to wake up early from, so I could go cater to the American mindset of consumerism and greed.

'MURICA!!

So, I decided the world needs to see what it looks like on Black Friday from my eyes. Because IT LOOKS RIDICULOUS. So I have written an hourly account of what happened.
Enjoy :)

8:50pm: People are gathering outside the doors. More and more come. I can't help but feel like I am in the zombie apocalypse as they amass outside our doors in droves. And us, the employees, are the last human survivors. But the doors wont hold them back for long and I have been assigned to be the one to stand in the front greeting people at they walk in. I can't help but feel that I am greeting death.
I am going die.

9:00pm: Unlocked the doors and got rushed by the crowd that rampaged through. I couldn't help but feel like that sick bald kid in World War Z as he crouched, cowering and covering his head with his hands as the zombie horde surged past him.
I pray to be a Modern Moses and part the crowd.
Only a miracle of God can save me now.

10:00pm: It is complete madness. Chaos reigns here as people throw clothes rampantly. It's like a disease is spreading from person to person. The need to destroy and maim all that is organized and clean.
Nothing will survive this.
We are doomed.

11:00pm: I am so hungry I think that I may break and start trashing the place myself.

12:00am: The managers in a desperate attempt to rally the troops have brought in pizza.
Pizza is my best friend. My Thanksgiving feast. My future-my everything.
I can now continue this battle

1:00am: A fellow employee has brought dishonor on his whole family by accidentally bumping into a very grumpy Asian woman. I swear she put some kind of curse on him. I am afraid for my family as well as myself now.
Wave 2 has begun...

2:00am: I have been assigned to the fitting room as I am the only employee here with the most experience at it that is currently working. It takes two of us to continue to monitor the rooms and the piles of clothes people are leaving. I have taken it upon myself to sort and fold all the clothes in the side room adjacent to the fitting room.

2:30am: I have crawled onto this mountain of clothes in the fitting room and started weeping uncontrollably. There is no foreseeable end to this madness.
I can't get up. I need Life Alert or something.

3:00am: This mountain of clothes will never end. I will die here under this pile and they will not find my body for weeks.
This will be my funeral pyre.
Well, I've always wanted a Viking funeral!

4:00am: My energy drink has run out. I can no longer form coherent sentences. God help us.

5:15am: It is done.
I have done my duty for my country.

Put that thing back where it came from or so help me...

So, as I was sitting in my car driving 5 hours to get to St. George last week, I came to this realization....My life has a playlist.

Now, ya'll get that crazy look of your face. I'm serious here. You know in the movies how whenever something depressing, scary or intense happens there always seems to be backround music that fits the scenario? And yet, the person has NO IDEA that the music is playing- it would be pretty darn weird if in the middle of a fighting scene in The Avengers movie Robert Downey Jr. starts humming along, right?

Well, I can't help but think my life is a movie..or at least a television show and I'm living in it EVERY DAY without even REALIZING it. The only people that tune in to watch however are God and deceased family members from up above...or below. But I'm not throwing out names here...

Anyways! It seems that whenever something life altering (or life threatening-don't ask. It occurs all the time.) happens to me, there always seems to be music that fits the situation. Sometimes the music plays before the situation occurs! Like a foretelling of whats to come...only I don't know it yet.

Stupid radio.

Have you ever woke up with a song playing through your head and you have no idea how it got there? A song you haven't heard in forever or hadn't listened to at all for that matter and only heard it that one time in that AWEFUL God forsaken movie theater-but you wake up and there it is! A small sentence or phrase playing over and over again in your head. Annoying right?

Definitely.

Pointless? No. Stay aloft people. There are games afoot.

See, this song is going to be the theme for that day. So I've learned to try and go with it. Like this one time when I was testing for my drivers license. I was getting onto the free way and was super nervous that I was going to fail. I wasn't really nervous about crashing and killing us all, I'm an amazing driver regardless of what you may or may not hear from outside sources. I was just worried that I wouldn't be able to pass and get my license. Which, in the mind of a fresh 16 year old, is akin to the END OF THE WORLD.

Sigh.

To be young and 16 again. Ha ha. Priorities right?

So here I was rubbing my sweating hands (one at a time-gotta keep 'em on 10 and 2!) on my jeans trying to calm down as my instructor merclesly teased me "Do you hands sweat when you hold with your boyfriend's hand Parry?" And "Don't do anything stupid this time Parry I want to live to see my son finish his mini golf game tonight."

I started envisioning driving off the side of the freeway, hitting that staples red Easy button and magically popping right to the DMV and smiling brilliantly for that mugshot picture that no one can ever look good in. But I was ready to take on that challenge. Not this one that entailed me driving out into the middle of nowhere and getting mercilessly teased by this teacher who knew way too much about me now.

 

Stupid sweaty hands.

But this song on the radio came on snapping me from my daydream and giving me hope. Instantly raising my spirits. I can't recall the exact song right now. Something about leaves and rain. But everything was gonna be okay and don't stress. I'm hoping that was what the artist was going for when he wrote the song, cause that's all I can remember.

I immedeatly turned it up much to the chagrin of my drivers teacher, who turned it down saying that it was "a distraction to my driving." Pfffft. I told him it was helping the percentage of sweat on my hands lower and that it was for his safety that he turn it back up or my hand sweat could possibly KILL US ALL if I lost control of the steering wheel.

He did. :)

 

Now fast forward to late last year.

 

I was on a plane descending over the Long Beach airport after a turbulent ride and was a little nervous not gonna lie. I have my headphones in just soaking in the tunes on shuffle and all of a sudden while we hit a bad patch of turbulence and the plane is moving around like Ricochet Rabbit this one song come on by AFI. I'm not really listening due to my panic of careening into the earth at what feels like warped speed and then this one sentence pops out to my ears.

 

 "This is the fall! This is the long way down!"

 

Immediately I am now listening with rapt attention and also thinking, you've gotta be kidding me. Seriously? Seriously?

 

"And our lives look smaller now. And our lives look so small!"

 

It was a moment for a double facepalm.

 

But I kind of thought it was funny too. In a weird, I'm going to die and God has a sense of humor, sort of way.

 

Thumbs up God. I get my weird sense of humor from you, surely.