This truly disgusts me

I don't go shopping on Black Friday. I never did and I'm pretty sure I never will. For one, I hate crowds. I like to go into a store, pick up what I came for, and leave. Fighting my way through obnoxious people at 5am to save $20 on a digital camera does not sound like my idea of a good time. Secondly, I have a very low tolerance for stupidity. And people who come out at 5am to bum-rush the doors to Wal-Mart, trampling and killing a man like a piece of garbage in the process, rank pretty high on my Stupid List.

I won't lie, I love a good deal as much as the next guy. One of the perks of working as a retail manager for so many years was paying WAY below MSRP for a lot of things. But as much as I like saving money, I like not being bothered more. I'm not one of those people who will travel 5 miles out of my way to save $10 on a sweater because that other store is having a sale. I also won't go somewhere that doesn't have parking, even if I'm missing out on saving $20. Call it laziness, but my time and sanity are much more important than saving a few dollars.

So it follows that I was not one of those people lined up outside Best Buy on Thursday night at midnight. And I was also not one of the maniacs that stampeded the doors of Wal-Mart, killing that poor employee. Out of pure selfish greed, out of some primal need to be first in line, 200 idiots rushed the doors of Wal-Mart on Long Island as they were being opened at 5am, knocked over Jdimytai Damour, an innocent employee, and then stepped on him, trampled him, over and over again until he was dead.

Is this what our country has come to? Is this what Christmas has come to? Killing people in the name of a good deal? I'm pretty sure that's not what Jesus wanted. I hope those people feel real good about themselves this holiday season. But knowing what kind of folk a 5am sale at a Long Island Wal-Mart attracts, I wouldn't be surprised if every single one of those humanitarians is telling their family, "I didn't even see him, I was all the way in the back. It was everyone else who stepped on him, I saw it! I even tried to stop them!" Uh-huh. Which is why when people were told that they have to leave the store because a man had been KILLED, they started screaming, "But I've been on line since yesterday morning!" and continued shopping. Nice.

To everyone that shoved their way into the store that morning: I hope that when your kids open their presents this year, the ones you killed a man in order to save $20 on, you think about him and his family and what kind of Christmas THEY are having. Merry Christmas, America.