Day-after obsession beyond me

PETER BUFFA

Do you get it? I don’t.

It’s the same story, the same images every year -- the morning

after Thanksgiving -- people lining up before dawn, employees

unlocking the doors then running for their lives as shoppers shove

their way inside, some using their shopping carts for a battering

ram.

Seriously, do you get it? I don’t get it. I understand the sale

part. Things that are a certain price on other days are cheaper on

Friday after Thanksgiving. So that thing you really, really want that

was $59.95 on Wednesday is $33.95 on Friday.

OK, I see where you’re going. Wednesday this much ... Friday that

much.

But here’s where I get a little foggy. Is it the difference

between those two prices -- 26 bucks to be exact -- that makes

someone stand in line in a parking lot at oh-dark-thirty, then start

pushing and cursing and generally acting like a wild dog on the

Serengeti that has just downed a small gazelle when someone unlocks

the door behind which the thing you really want is?

Is that it?

I’m sorry. I hate to be so thick, but we better start again.

Granted, part of the problem is gender-based. That goes without

saying. Most men do not have the shopping chromosome. It’s not

something we’re proud of, nor something we’re embarrassed about.

There is nothing to be done about it. There is no cure, no surgery,

no therapy, no support groups. When you don’t have a shopping

chromosome, your perception of stores and shopping is hopelessly

flawed. It’s called retail dyslexia. Most men associate the word

store with a place you go to get something you need then leave. No

one understands why. It’s very strange. The other mental block I have

about the Friday-after ritual is if there was ever a morning when

you’d want to expend as little energy as possible, the morning after

Thanksgiving is it.

Thanksgiving is hard.

Someone, not me -- which is probably what I’m most thankful for --

has to spend 17 hours preparing a very specific meal that we eat

once, OK maybe twice, a year. There are a dozen side dishes and two

pies that you absolutely, positively have to serve or somebody will

have a shmoo, even though no one will think about that side dish or

pie let alone eat it again until exactly 12 months later.

It takes a little more than 36 minutes to finish the meal, which

sends everyone into a tryptophan-induced coma.

Hours later, as you slowly start to regain consciousness, you hear

these words in the distance for the 80th time, and you know that is,

mercifully, almost over: “We’re home, Toto, home! And this is my

room, and you’re all here! And I’m not going to leave here ever, ever

again because I love you all! Oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like

home!”

All-righty then. This was great, where’s my keys, no thanks, we

won’t eat it, see you next year. Now you tell me. After all that,

what is it that drives someone to get up, fluff it, fold it and fall

in outside the big glass doors at 6:30 in the morning? I have no

idea.

Maybe you think this is all a little over the top, an

exaggeration, an overstatement, a bit of hyperbolic fun. I’ve got one

thing to say to you -- Orange City, Fla.

There’s a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Orange City.

Have you ever seen a Wal-Mart Supercenter? Consider yourself

lucky.

A Wal-Mart has its own zip code. A Wal-Mart Supercenter has its

own weather. Friday morning’s heavily advertised and ironically named

“door buster” at the Orange City Wal-Mart was a $29.95 DVD player.

Patricia Van Lester, 41, and her sister, Linda Elzey, wanted that

$29.95 DVD player. They wanted it bad. So they made sure they were in

line, warmed up and ready to go well before the 6 a.m. start of the

post-turkey day madness their Wal-Mart. Unfortunately for the Van

Lester sisters, the people behind them wanted a DVD player worse than

they did. When the doors opened, the huge surge of DVD-crazed

shoppers tossed Patricia Van Lester to the ground and knocked her

unconsciousness, according to the Associated Press. While her sister

Linda cried and screamed for help, shoppers continued to scramble

over Patricia, some stumbling themselves, but keeping their eyes on

the digital prize the whole time.

A Wal-Mart employee tried to help, but was unable to reach the two

women in the maelstrom of arms and legs and shopping carts.

“They walked over her like a herd of elephants,” Elzey said. “I

told them, ‘Stop stepping on my sister! She’s on the ground!’”

The paramedics were there in minutes but were unable to bring

Patricia out of it. Luckily, after she was airlifted to a hospital in

Daytona Beach, she regained consciousness. I

know there’s nothing about the story, true as it is, that is

anything less than incredible, but here’s my absolutely favorite

part.

On Friday afternoon someone from Wal-Mart called Elzey to inquire

about Van Lester, wish her well and offer something as a gesture of

the company’s concern.

You say they offered to give her a DVD player? Please.

Offering someone who was lucky to get out of your store alive

something that costs $29.95 would be cheesy in extremis. No, this was

even better.

Incredibly, the store didn’t offer to give Patricia a DVD player

-- they offered to “hold one” for her.

“We are very disappointed this happened,” said Wal-Mart

representative Karen Burk. “We want her to come back as a shopper.”

I’m sure that’ll do it, Karen. But please let me know when

Patricia Van Lester is coming by. I don’t care if it is Florida, I’d

love to be there when you ring up the thirty bucks and ask her if

that’ll be cash or charge.

There are some holiday moments you just don’t want to miss. I

gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].