Comments & Curiosities:

Do you shop? A lot of people do. I do, but with very tight constraints.

I handle the food. That’s it. I like it though; always have.

Roaming the aisles, reading the labels, trying to decide between the Gruyere or the Gouda, wondering what trans-fat is. But as far as real world, serious, go-to-a-mall shopping is concerned, I’d rather eat a bug.

Maybe that’s why I am so totally and completely fascinated with Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving/line-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night/I-hope-they-have-one-left-madness.

Certainly you’ve caught some of the endless coverage of Black Friday in ads and in the news: stores opening at oh-dark-thirty, people stacked up at the door like marathoners at the starting line, desperate to get their hands on the 50-inch high-def plasma screen for $199 or the one-eighth-carat earrings for $19.95.

I can’t stand to watch it and I can’t stand not to. It’s what psychologists called OCRBFD — Obsessive-Compulsive-Repulsive-Black Friday Disorder.

You’ve probably heard the explanation of why it’s called Black Friday.

Supposedly, the sales volume on Black Friday is so huge that it can put an otherwise struggling retailer in the black. But according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, known to retail industry insiders as the International Council of Shopping Centers, that is totally bogus.

The day after T-Day has never been the busiest shopping day of the year, doorbusters or not. Since 1995, the busiest shopping days of the year have been between Dec. 18 and Dec. 23, with the majority of them Dec. 21 to 23.

Even though a mind-boggling one-third of the population of the United States — that’s about 130 million of us — hit at least one store on Black Friday, only about a third of the thundering horde actually buys anything. What are the other 85 million people doing in a dark parking lot at 4 a.m., with people behind them pushing and shoving and yelling bad things at them? I have no idea. There are things that are better left unasked and unanswered.

So how did things go this Black Friday? In our corner of the universe, it was very, well, black, which is a good thing if you’re a retailer. According to Debra Gunn Downing, the Marketing Meister at South Coast Plaza, by midday, sales were up 6% over last year.

“Customers are in a very good mood,” Downing said. “We are very pleased with that.” It’s good that our shoppers were in a good mood, but elsewhere in the country, not so much.

To the near north, after a midnight opening at the Wal-mart in Upland, police were called in at 2:45 a.m. to break up a number of “it’s mine/no, it’s mine” fistfights that were in full effect throughout the store.

In Manchester, Conn., hundreds of Black Friday warriors lined up outside a Toys R Us that was scheduled to pop the cork, and the doors, at midnight.

When the clock struck 12, a number of people tried to bull their way to the head of the class. It did not go well. It took more than 20 police officers from Manchester and nearby towns to get everyone settled down and cart away the bleeders. Never get between a parent and this year’s toy.

Ever been to the Desert Hills outlet mall in Cabazon? Shudder. With their midnight madness sale kicking off at 12:01 a.m. Friday, you might have thought people would still be a little bogged down from T-Day dinner and not quite ready to hit the stores. If you thought that, you were mistaken.

Hours before the outlet center opened, traffic in both directions on I-10 was so locked up that the CHP had to intervene and set up detours on and off the freeway.

So what is everybody sprinting and screaming about when those doors open this year? At the Toys R Us in Connecticut, it was probably all about Zhu Zhu Pets — this year’s absolutely, positively must-have toy — fuzzy little electronic hamsters that scurry around and look unsettlingly real to anyone over eleven. Pipsqueak, Nums Nums and Mr. Squiggles are wildly popular in these difficult economic times with a price tag of $8 to $10. But good luck finding Mr. Squiggles or his buds. The fuzzy little beasts are selling on eBay and Amazon.com for up to $60, which is a lot of dough for a computerized rodent.

Speaking of which, computerized everything and anything is, as always, the object of intense desire and endless passion for millions and millions. I suppose one could survive without iPhones and Netbooks, Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, 1-terabyte hard drives and LCD flat panel HD monitors — but where is the fun in that?

And that I believe is that. I have no more to tell you about Black Friday, Mr. Squiggles and OCRBFD. And you know what? I still don’t get it. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected] .