5 tips to survive Black Friday this year

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Spend your Thanksgiving with what really warms your heart this holiday season–unbridled capitalism!

It’s Thanksgiving night, and while the rest of your awkward dinner party’s attendants yawn and rub their eyes, you’re preparing for battle. Black Friday is just around the corner, and if the holidays are supposed to celebrate one thing, it’s capitalism. You can be thankful after your new X-Box is sitting snugly in front of a brand new 60-inch flat screen.

Here are a few Black Friday survival tips to help you catch the best deals:

The Classic: “My friend’s waiting at the front!”

Let’s be real – it’s 6 a.m., your limbs are aching from the cornucopia of merchandise piled on top of you, and you’re kind of regretting that last piece of pumpkin pie. Do you really have the patience to stand in a line for three hours? Of course not! As you shuffle resentfully towards the end of the line, pretend to see your dearest friend near the front. Make sure to gesture wildly and pointedly shout to ensure full deception. Even though no one is actually waiting for you at the front, the thrill of the unknown will exponentially amplify your Black Friday shopping experience. Just don’t break the act – the second your fellow customers smell fear, they’ll boot you to the back.

The Herd

All your life you’ve been told be yourself: to be unique and stand up against the crowd. Throw all of that out the door on Black Friday, or risk never getting through one. Trample or be trampled. Welcome to the real world.

The Diversion

It’s right there. That sweater you’ve been eyeing for the past two months, and now it can be all yours for $6.99. But just as you take a deep breath of the stiflingly commercial air, preparing yourself to grab the last one, you see another set of fingers shooting towards it. What to do? Create a diversion. Studies show that the most effective methods include squawking in a loud, parrot-like fashion or pushing over the adjacent rack of clothing (as long as it topples completely over, and you can handle the death glares of employees faintly resemebling zombies).

An example has been provided below.

Tech Me Out

Forget pumpkins and cranberries during the holiday season – the real star is Apple, and Black Friday is your perfect opportunity to pluck the fruits of capitalism. So what, you already have an iPhone 6 Plus and an iPad. The holidays are all about family, and an iPad mini would be the perfect addition to your power couple. Bonus tip: hit up Samsung on the way to fill your pockets with even more products that won’t fit in one hand.

The Crew

Ever enter a shop fiercely determined not to lose your friends, only to be abandoned after lingering at a certain display for a millisecond too long? Fasten your friends to a leash (hopefully not unbeknownst to them) fashioned into a stylish belt. They’ll never escape, and now your crew can easily navigate through crowds of people as they sail the seas of materialism.