Post-Thanksgiving shopping lives up to rep
By Marley Shebala
Navajo Times
GALLUP, Dec. 1, 2011
I was surprised that the video game player was so small and light. I was expecting it to be larger and heavier.
But what really surprised me was the orderly distribution of the coveted item.
This was Black Friday - or rather Black Thursday. Where were all the crazy, scary antics of frenzied Walmart shoppers I'd heard about for years and years?
I was both disappointed and relieved until I left the detergent section where I and several other individuals had been waiting quietly since 5 p.m. for Black Thursday to start - 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.
Then I found myself in the middle of the legendary scrum I'd seen on TV and read about. Already there was a traffic jam of shopping carts between the cash registers and me.
As I stood with my grandson, a sixth grader, in the children's clothing section and pondered how to get him and the Xbox safely to the cash register, several shoppers almost ran us over with carts piled high with toys, luggage and household appliances.
Some large young men rushed past us with arms full of towels. They were laughing and smiling.
I pulled out my cell phone to contact my granddaughter, an eighth grader, who had been in the appliance section next to a special on electric mixers when I last checked on her about 9 p.m.
When I got no answer from her, I sent my grandson to find her while I guarded the Xbox. He returned without his sister but with a shopping cart.
I put the Xbox in the cart then went in search of my granddaughter. I had to squeeze through shoppers and shopping carts and also to resist grabbing a vacuum cleaner and a red luggage set.
I found her and my other grandson, a high schooler, standing in the fresh produce section. She had the mixer and an extra $15 she'd received from a mom for finding her a shopping cart.
My grandson had a copy of "Battlefield 3" and a tale of police officers threatening to pepper spray the video game shoppers if they didn't move away from a large steel container holding the games.
The video game container then was moved closer to the frozen food section, and a young lady got smashed up against it by other eager shoppers. My grandson somehow was able to slide across the frozen food and rescue her.
He and the young lady, a high school senior from Zuni Pueblo, introduced themselves as they waited in line for 10 p.m. to strike.
My granddaughter had a similar experience. She was among those closest to the big stack of mixers, and got smashed into them by other shoppers scrambling to get one when 10 p.m. rolled around, she said.
She said she didn't know I was texting and calling her because her cell phone went dead.
When we all finally walked out of Walmart and into the cold, wet, packed parking lot, we were tired but strangely euphoric.
I also made some new friends as I waited in the Xbox line: Norbanah John, 14, a freshman at Tohatchi High School, and his brother, Cyrus John, 9, a fourth-grader at Twin Lakes Elementary.
Norbanah said their Xbox broke two years ago and they were first in line to get the newest version.
As I watched them I was impressed and hopeful. Impressed because I never heard them whining about the five-hour wait for Black Thursday to begin. Hopeful because I never heard them arguing.
I've written so many stories about domestic violence and child abuse, it's good to see healthy relationships.
Greg Mitchell, 54, Cherokee, is married to a Navajo. His wife was in line at the video games, but when she called to tell him about the security officials' threats to use pepper spray, he urged her to forget the games.
This was Mitchell's first visit to a Black Friday sale and he wished that he'd brought a folding chair, water and food.
Raye Ann Wicketts, 59, who was fourth in line, smiled and said she's been to about five of them. Wicketts recommended bringing something to sit on, a book to read, water and food.
It was my first Black Friday too, but after all the hours I've spent waiting outside executive sessions of the Navajo Nation Council, I knew what to bring.