Letters & Opinion
What’s the point?: Black and blue Friday
The Pointer
kleb524@uwsp.edu
The semester is almost over and yet it seems that the end could not come soon enough. Between the tests, research projects and cold weather, I am ready to lounge around and catch up on my favorite televisions shows while scrapbooking. (Yes, I scrapbook, and you should too!)
I officially knew the semester was near completion when I began hearing Christmas music at my retail job. When the music begins, I know that Thanksgiving is around the corner and therefore the semester is almost done. This past week, of course, was the much celebrated holiday. A holiday celebrated for the joys of eating a delicious meal, not having to sit in a classroom, and for many, the best time to go shopping.
Being in retail for the past six-and-a-half years has allowed me the fortune of witnessing some of the most outrageous acts from people desiring certain products.
Black Friday, as we call it in the industry, is perhaps the best opportunity to do a social study of human interaction. Not only do you witness the best and worst parts of an individual, you get to see it happen hundreds of times throughout the day by all of the customers you encounter.
It is absolutely amazing to witness people knocking each other over to grab a $4.49 popcorn tin. Why on Earth anyone decides to get up four hours before they normally would and stand in a line outside, with the temperature below freezing, is beyond me. For me, that has always been a “What’s the point?”
This year, however, I was a bit disappointed. Yes, there were people doing all the aforementioned things, but not as many as I usually like to see. This year I did not witness anyone trip while running to the back of the store; no one knocked over the wrapping paper bin, shooting rolls fifteen feet down the aisle, and no one yelled from two aisles away demanding where an item was. But alas, customers still were able to make disturbing comments about my reindeer antlers, the rotating set I wear beginning the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve.
But I digress.
With the end of the semester, and this the last issue of The Pointer for the semester, I would like to extend my congratulations to all of you for making it through this fall 2008 semester. For you freshmen, this was your first college semester, so congratulations for making it through. Now you know the ropes! Some of you have retied the ropes for roughly eight-to-ten semesters now. You are almost there and I am guessing you are focused on the finish line; just one more entire week and you will be finished with your final classes. I guess for the rest of us somewhere in the middle of this process, good luck on finals. We are almost done with one more semester as students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point!
