Shop talk

I've been a bad consumer. On what was supposed to be the busiest shopping day of the year — the day businesses nationwide use deep discounts items to drive shoppers into a kind of retail psychosis — I was a bystander at best.
While shoppers still digesting Thanksgiving meals lined up outside stores in hopes of being one of the first through the doors, I was warm in bed.
While adrenaline-fueled consumers crowded the doors hoping for the first shot at the bargains inside, I was getting ready for work.
And while shoppers at a New York Wal Mart were trampling one of the stores employees in their rush to get a good price on a flat screen TV — well, I managed not to stomp on a single person's head.
I consider that a pretty successful day.
Then again, I've never been much of a shopper. Even under the best of circumstances all I get from most trips to the store is a chance to wander through aisles of poorly organized merchandise looking for a chance to hand over money that could go toward more important things. Like beer.
It's not the notion of trading cash for goods that really bothers me about the shopping experience, though. Mostly, it's the people.
I should probably clarify that. Working in the newspaper business as I do, dealing with people is a pretty significant part of my job. And for the most part I'm OK with that. Alone or in small groups people are generally pretty decent.
There are exceptions to that, of course. I'm not really cool with the two guys who body-checked my dad off his bike last week and threatened to, I quote, "slice him" if he didn't hand over his cash.
Thankfully, I've only had a handful of interviews that ended with the subject threatening violence against me.
Shopping, though, rarely involves people in small numbers. I can hardly get through a mall parking lot without my opinion of humanity dropping a notch or two. And on the rare occasions I venture out to the Mall of America, that Mecca of American consumer culture, I usually leave feeling like I need to lock myself in my bedroom by myself for about a week.
I've never dared to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, but I imagine it's like being at the mall on its busiest day with a bunch of people who started their shopping trip with about a dozen Cinnabons and a thermos of espresso.
That's the impression I get when I read about Jdimytai Damour, the 34-year-old Wal Mart employee who died last week after a thundering herd of shoppers knocked him down and walked over him as they rushed nab the toasters and digital photo frames they'd waited in the cold to get.
I don't imagine that will change anybody's approach to the so-called Black Friday. Stores will continue to have big sales because they draw people in and get them to spend money. News outlets will continue to cover it because telling the same stories about a made-up event each year is easier than coming up with something new. And hey, who doesn't like to see video of stampeding shoppers?
I'll be at home.