{"id":3665,"date":"2011-12-04T01:49:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-04T01:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3665"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","slug":"black-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3665","title":{"rendered":"Black Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A week ago I found myself at the local Walmart.\u00a0 It was Thanksgiving night – almost 10:00 PM when I drove into the parking lot to find that every single spot was filled.\u00a0 The Menards lot next door was rapidly filling as well.\u00a0 I parked in the lot of a distant restaurant and walked.\u00a0 I had a few things on my list – a present for Dats that was going on sale at ten and a GPS for the car, a new printer, and a digital camera.\u00a0 My list was rather practical.\u00a0 I wasn’t after the season’s hottest toy or some fancy electronic gizmo.\u00a0 Even Dats’ present\u00a0is an “educational” one which requires no electricity.\u00a0 Nobody fought me for\u00a0Dats’ item. The printer was going for $69 and usually retails for $200.\u00a0 Not only that, but it is a Kodak printer and Kodak produces the cheapest ink cartridges.\u00a0 Plus, it scans and copies and faxes – all functions which might come in handy in Haiti.\u00a0Surprisingly, nobody fought me for this item either. The GPS was a Magellan, selling also for $69. ($110 on Amazon.)\u00a0 We figured this thing would be helpful over the next few months as we make home and church visits to share about Haiti.\u00a0 Nobody fought for this thing at all – in fact, there were still quite a few on the shelf the next day.\u00a0 The Kodak Easyshare camera was where the line formed.\u00a0 For those of you too smart to ever go to Walmart at 10 PM on\u00a0a Thanksgiving night, let me describe the scene for you.\u00a0 In the center aisles are boxed displays of all sorts of cheap “treasures”.\u00a0 Black cellophane plastic is wrapped tightly around each display – and is not to be tampered with until midnight.\u00a0 Any movement in the crowd of shoppers is slow and shoulder to shoulder.\u00a0 Some of the big ticket items form actual lines that wind up and down particular aisles – further restricting the movement of crowds within the store.\u00a0 Other items, like the Kodak camera, draw people\u00a0who stand close by the display for two hours in order to get first grab.\u00a0 I was one of those idiots standing beside the camera display for nearly two hours.\u00a0 I was idiot #5 and was joined ultimately by about 35 other idiots.\u00a0 We\u00a0passed the time mainly by avoiding looking into each other’s eyes.\u00a0 When patience began to run out (around 11:30 PM), some of the idiots started picking\u00a0holes in\u00a0the plastic and formulating guesses as to how many cameras the display box actually held.\u00a0 Eventually, idiots #1, #2 and #3 started sneaking cameras into their shopping carts even though we were still 20 minutes from the official \u00a0unwrapping.\u00a0 In the final 15 minutes, standing with Dats’ gift on the floor between my feet, my\u00a0legs went numb because people were pushing in so tight against me, I couldn’t even shift my weight from side to side.\u00a0 When the signal came to unwrap, I was crushed up against the display box by the dozen people behind me, their arms reaching over and around me on all sides.\u00a0 It was a frenzy that\u00a0strangely reminded me of starving people in some drought-stricken\u00a0village\u00a0swamping aid workers who are distributing bags of rice.\u00a0 Honestly, it was a bit scary and a whole lot depressing.\u00a0 As I was getting pushed and elbowed, I started yelling, “IT’S JUST A CAMERA, PEOPLE!”\u00a0 I felt embarrassed and silly to be a part of it, and I fought my way out of the crowd as quickly as I could.\u00a0 (Oh, I grabbed my camera first … I wasn’t about to go home without a camera after wasting two hours of my life for it.) I was in a shop today (a much quieter and calmer shopping experience) and overheard two women having this conversation: Woman #1:\u00a0 Are you going to get anything? Woman #2:\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 Probably not. #1: Really?\u00a0 It’s all 50% off. #2:\u00a0 Well, I’ve hit the point where there’s not anything that I really need. In fact, I’ve even hit the point where there’s not anything I even WANT any more. This is our reality and yet across this planet, 26,000 children under the age of 5 died today from malnutrition and preventable disease.\u00a0 Tomorrow, another 26,000 will die.\u00a0 So between now and Christmas morning, another 572,000 children under 5 will die tragic, preventable deaths.\u00a0 Melissa gets on me about being a bit of a party pooper this time of year, and I try not to be.\u00a0 (Sometimes I try harder than others.)\u00a0 I do love seeing the kids get excited about presents under the tree and their reactions when they unwrap toys on Christmas morning are priceless.\u00a0 Still, I can’t shake contrasting (in the back of my mind) the joy I feel in those moments with the absolute despair those 26,000 fathers must feel in watching their precious little ones suffer and die. \u00a0Jesus said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” From Isaiah 58: \u00a06<\/strong><\/sup> \u201cIs not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and break every yoke? 7<\/strong><\/sup> Is it not to share your food with the hungry \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter\u2014 when you see the naked, to clothe them, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 8<\/strong><\/sup> Then your light will break forth like the dawn, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 9<\/strong><\/sup> Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. P.S.\u00a0 All of us idiots stood around for two hours for a $50 digital camera which we assumed was a great bargain, but not one of us researched the model on line to see if it really was a good deal.\u00a0\u00a0 If we had, we would have discovered (as I did just tonight) that it was impossible to compare sale price to regular retail price since this model has not been sold previously in the U.S.\u00a0 You can’t even find it on the Kodak website.\u00a0 You can, however, find it available in the Czech Republic!\u00a0 Apparently, it retails there for 1,438.50\u00a0Celkems … sooooo, still not sure if I got a good deal or not.\u00a0 Definitely not worth beating each other up over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week ago I found myself at the local Walmart.\u00a0 It was Thanksgiving night – almost 10:00 PM when I drove into the parking lot to find that every single spot was filled.\u00a0 The Menards lot next door was rapidly filling as well.\u00a0 I parked in the lot of a distant restaurant and walked.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3667,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665\/revisions\/3667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}