A "Black Friday" Shoppng Friday Five

Here's this week's RevGals/Pals Friday Five, in honor of "Black Friday" (aka Buy Nothing Day) the busiest shopping day of the year:

1. Would you ever/have you ever stood in line for something--tickets, good deals on electronics, Tickle Me Elmo?

I have never stood in line for Christmas deals, or shopping items. Never have, never will. NOTHING is that important to buy--no item anyway. However, I have stood in line to purchase tickets to both movies and concert events. But I have limits, even then! Oh, unless you count the gas shortage time in the '70s when we waited in long lines or went without gasoline.

2. Do you enjoy shopping as a recreational activity?

Occasionally. It depends on who I am with and where we are. But I am not a person who just loves to shop. My husband, h0wever, is. Yard sales, grocery stores, malls, Goodwill and so on. The man is a shopaholic.

3. Your favorite place to browse without necessarily buying anything.

I have two. Antique stores is one. I can't usually afford to buy much, but I love to look at interesting old stuff. And the other is book stores. I can spend hours in one...not that I do...but I could if I had my way.

4. Gift cards: handy gifts for the loved one who has everything, or cold impersonal symbol of all
that is wrong in our culture?

Either, depending on the situation. They are handy for times when you have to buy a relative a gift, maybe, and you have no clue what they like. Or I could give my son a gift card to a music store, knowing he will have c.d.s in mind he'd like to buy--but I sure don't know what they are.
I could do the same for my daughter, except the gift card might be to a book store. When people give us a gift card it is usually to the local Mexican restaurant (which anyone who knows me knows I love), so that is really not all that impersonal. Last year we gave a gift card to a home improvment type store, knowing the recipient is a guy who loves fix-it projects but not knowing what he might need specifically. That is not totally impersonal, IMO. A gift card to Wal-Mart though? No. Tacky.

5. Discuss the spiritual and theological issues inherent in people coming to blows over a Playstation.

Disgusting, eh? It reveals the thing we don't want to admit about our culture, that we are crassly materialistic. It also flies in the face of the Golden Rule. Those who lose all civility when it comes to aquiring stuff are frightening to me, because they apparently have no concept that people are vastly more important than stuff.

My daughter and I went shopping on Black Friday a few years ago. It was a nightmare of no parking spaces, crowds, and drizzling rain. I won't do it again, if I can help it.