I check my mail on Wednesday to find the usual assortment of junk mail and flyers. God I hate the post office. I'm about to indiscreetly dump it into the package pick-up boxes, as usual, when something catches my eye - a flyer from Wal-Mart. On the front page is an advertisement for a DVD player - $50. Not too bad I think. My mother has been wanting one, and I think that would be a great Christmas present, especially the $50 part. I love you Mom, but I'm poor as hell. You know that. So I decide to get this for her. It won't be available until the after Thanksgiving Holiday Sale, Friday morning at 6AM. No problem I think, I just won't sleep Thursday night, sneak out of the parents house Friday morning, buy the player, come back, slip back into bed, easy enough. Right? Ha! Obviously, you can tell I've never done this before.

The following events occur between 5AM and 6:30AM on the day after Thanksgiving. All events occur in real time.

5:00

I roll out of bed, half awake and ready to get this over with. I sneak downstairs, put on clothes, grab my coat and keys, and slip out of the house without ever making a sound or waking anyone up. All the while I'm thinking how damned slick I am, like James Fucking Bond. I get out to my car at 5:20. My plan was to leave at 5:30, but it is freezing out here. I need to start the car for heat, but I don't want to have the engine running in the neighborhood, so I decide to leave ahead of schedule. No big deal. I'll wait it out in the parking lot, and listen to my CD's. Still, no worries.

5:30

I arrive at Wal-Mart to find a somewhat full parking lot. Odd. As I get closer, I see something in the headlights. Asses. Legs. Jeans. People. People in line. Yes, people standing in line to get inside of the store at 5:30 in the goddamned morning. Holy shit. I park the car (yes, there actually is parking at this point) and after considering staying in the car for a minute or two, I decide to go ahead and get in line.

At this point, the line is about 15 cars deep into the parking lot away from the store. And oh, have I mentioned yet that it's freezing cold? Thank God I had the foresight to wear my heaviest jacket, but it is still fucking cold. My teeth are shivering. My knees are shivering. My hands are shivering. Even my fucking liver is shivering at this point. There's a lady about two people in front of me holding a steaming cup of coffee, and I seriously considered knocking her out and pouring the coffee over my head. The guy in front of me asks if I know the time. I check my watch - 5:35.

Fuck.

5:35

The line is constantly getting bigger behind me. I watch as people are steadily arriving, and making the exodus to the back of the line. And it dawns on me - this is the most active I have ever seen the world at 5:35 in the morning. I mean, morning person or not, people don't tend to like to move this early. There are no birds chirping, because even they are fucking asleep. All to save a few bucks, huh? I can't think of anything else that could motivate this many people this early in the morning. Try it next time you see your friends, see what happens...

You: Hey guys, why don't we get breakfast tomorrow morning? Bright and early at 5:30! My treat!
Friends: .................(in unison) Fuck you.

There are two Hispanic ladies behind me, and one of their cell phones rings. And I found this interesting, because who the hell else is awake at 5:30 in the morning, and much less calling people at 5:30 in the morning. And then I realized how far-reaching this atrocity must be. Other stores, not just Wal-Mart, across the state. Across the country. Truly insane motherfuckers, like me and the rest of the condemned in this line, trying to capitalize on a sale. It was a truly frightening revelation.

I also start to worry about my DVD player. I mean, I'm about halfway up the line here. How many do they have? What if all the people in front of me are here for it? The ladies behind me are talking - they came for the TV's and DVD players. What if they sell out before I ever get to them? The thought of me freezing my balls of at 5:30 in the morning to not even get the DVD player does not make me happy. I'm thinking Wal-Mart needs to do something to appease us, like free hot chocolate for the first 100 people in line, at least guaranteed goods. Because if we get inside and don't find what we're looking for, it will not be pretty.

The line moves up a few feet. Nothing has happened at the door, it just moved up. I can't explain why.

5:45

The line moves up another few feet. I think I realize why. Clearly, people are dying of hypothermia up there. As they do, their friends are carefully shoving them out of the line, and we're picking up the slack back here. Some kind of shopper natural selection I suppose. Only the strongest survive.

One of the Hispanic ladies behind me, as she's moving up in the line, almost goes past me. She stops, says "whoops", smiles, and goes back behind me. Good thing too, because I was this close to snapping her back.

At this point, I started to really hate the employees inside. Here we were slowly turning into chunks of ice holding salespapers, and they were inside their little heated building, probably watching us and laughing. Fuckers. I remember that Wal-Mart usually hires old people to serve as greeters - stand in the doorway and smile and welcome people to the store. I imagine there's going to be some old, grandfatherly guy, standing there, cheerfully greeting the mob come 6AM. And if he looks me square in the face, smiles his smile and says "Thank you for shopping Wal-Mart", I am going to summarily punch that fucker in the nose.

My anger management classes start bright and early Monday morning.

I reach up to rub my nose, when I realize I can't even feel my nose. I can't feel my ears either. And my sinuses are solid now. Mom, I hope you appreciate this. Next time you try to play that whole "I carried you with me for 9 months" crap, I'm going to bring up the time I got frostbite standing in a line outside Wal-Mart to get you a DVD player for Christmas. If I get the player at all. Fuck.

And then I start thinking - I got here at 5:30, and was this far back in the line. When, exactly, did the people who are standing at the door ger here? I tried to think of an earlier time in the morning, but hell, it doesn't get much earlier than 5:30. I can only conclude that they were here last night. I can imagine them setting up their dinner table outside the Wal-Mart doors, carving the turkey and everything. And they're all smiling, knowing they get first crack at those $50 DVD players. God we're all pathetic. To make it worse, at this exact moment, one of the ladies behind me asks "If we're here now, I wonder how early those people at the front lined up?"

5:50

It's getting ugly now. Several late arrivals, not even bothering with the line, have camped out at the entrance of the store. I guess they figure when the doors open, they can bum rush their way in. Wal-Mart's defense? One guy in a suit. I shit you not, one guy in a dress shirt and dockers. Forget what I said before, this guy had better be James Fucking Bond if he expects to survive this morning. Those in line are getting anxious. "Get in line!" they angrily scream to the campers, who aren't budging. You can feel the hint of violence in the air. And it's going to get worse. Those front-of-store campers are going to snap back Guy in Suit, and the people at the doors, who have clearly been in line since Veterans Day, aren't going to have any of that, and we will have a full-scale riot on our hands. I am going to die in a Wal-Mart riot. Of all the ways I figured I was going to go, this sure as hell isn't one of them. All for a $50 DVD player. I must be out of my goddamned head.

The line moves up another few feet. I suppose the next round of victims have been claimed from hypothermia. You will not be missed. Natural selection.

Y'know what? This is humanity at its worst. Right here, at Wal-Mart. You have to be here to truly appreciate the ugliness of it all. I can imagine all the great humanitarians/peace makers spinning in their graves right now. This might be too old school for many of you, but do you remember this commercial in the late 70's/early 80's about pollution? There was this Indian standing on the side of the freeway, looking over the polluted landscape. A car drives by, and they toss some litter, which lands at his feet. Camera pans up to catch a teardrop falling from the Indian's eye. Right now, I could picture Mahatma Ghandi, standing somewhere in the parking lot, surveying this scene, with the fucking teardrop rolling down his cheek.

6:00

Allright, it's go time. The doors open, and people begin to pile in. I half expect everyone to drop the line and just rush the door down. The front-of-store campers try their bum rush. As we're moving, the people in the line see this and begin to get upset. I begin praying for my life, and planning my potential escape routes for the anticipated riot. Somehow though, Guy in Suit keeps them all back, which leads me to believe that he is actually Superman. We continue to make our way to the store, and as we pass the people being held back, many taunt them. So naturally, I'm still fearing for my life. Little do I know the worst is yet to come.

Finally, I enter the store. There is no greeter, and good thing too because he would have been rushed down. BAD. It's an absolute frenzy, as people are rushing, grabbing carts. And everyone is heading towards that mecca, that one place where all eyes are directed, where all desires are fulfilled - electronics. Fuck.

I'm trying to walk normally. This is a mob scene, and I don't want to feed into it. It's fine at first, but as I get closer to electronics, it's even more of a traffic jam. A sea of humanity. And every time I slow down, even slightly, I get rammed in the ass by a shopping cart. Five times in thirty seconds people. Now, I'm usually not very space conscious. I walk and stand where I want, when I want. Being tall and black gives me that power. But today, I really had to turn on the finesse and maneuver carefully. Because these people were psycho. They had no fear. I could see it in their eyes.

As we get closer to electronics, the carts, which these madmen had been fighting over earlier, were now causing a huge traffic jam. People were getting stuck, frustrated. So they abandoned them. Right there in the middle of the aisle. It was at this point that I realized my hate against the Wal-Mart employees was sadly misdirected. They were the victims here. I saw a few of them, and you see that look that only true fear can produce. You know when you were younger, and doing something you throughly should not have been, and loving every minute of it. Then you look up to find your mother standing there menacingly holding the frying pan? And you turn to your friends and they have this "Oh shit we're going to die" look on their faces? Yeah, that look.

To my left, over in womens apparel, I see boxes literally flying through the air. TV's. DVD players. Of course! The electronics department is very small. Stack the goods elsewhere! I jump a few abandoned carts to get over there. People are mobbing them. Not just one or two, they're carrying however many they can. One guy is already holding five DVD players, and trying to stick a sixth under his arms. No joke. I find the DVD players I was looking for - there were three modest-sized stacks of them. One stack has been completely ravaged - they're just now tearing into the second. I grab one and, still fearing for my life, get the hell out of there.

6:15

Dear God, I'm alive. I get back out to my car, dump the DVD player in the trunk, and head home. I'm back by 6:25, and I sneak back into the house, into my pajamas, and onto the couch. They never knew I was gone. Damn I'm smooth. But the scars from this morning still remain burned into my psyche, never to go away I fear. I didn't get much sleep that morning, for fear of what would haunt my nightmares.

So yeah, I woke up early, braved the cold, and perhaps the worst face humanity has to do something nice for my mother. Hope she appreciates it. But unless you were there, there among the masses, in the middle of the chaos, you don't understand what a spectacle this was. I was nowhere near the LA Riots, but I imagine it looked a lot like this, except replace the terrified Wal-Mart employees with terrified policemen and shop owners. And do you want to know what the scariest part is? If you've read any of the other editorials on this site, you know I have a habit of comic exaggeration, making things seem bigger than they actually are for effect. But the scariest part of all this...? I didn't exaggerate any of that.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to curl up into a corner and cry for humanity.