It's not that we wish to purchase things on sale, it's that we're prepared to sacrifice our dignity, our humility and even our humanity to get at them, and woe betide anyone who tries to stop us! People fighting over stuff, scalping one another, buying something then walking out to the parking lot and immediately selling it for twice the price. Just being dicks, basically.
With respect, I think people are turned into drones. They act without thinking, buying shit they do not need simply because it has a discount tag, and prepared to do violence to anyone who's in the way. And don't tell me it doesn't happen that way, I've been on too many girlfriend-mandated shopping trips in my time to buy it.
My ex was the type who felt that a Saturday not spent trawling through the town centre for 'bargains' was a Saturday wasted. Who gave her that idea? Where did it come from? They don't teach you that in school, or at least, not at the school I went to. She was as much a drone as anyone else. If you asked her, she couldn't tell you why she did it (still does, in all likelihood).
There was this article that caught my eye:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6140287.html
A precis:
Quote:
On Tuesday, GameSpot staffers witnessed even more chaotic scenes at the local Target in Colma, on the peninsula south of San Francisco. There, a lone security guard spent most of the night shooing an increasingly unruly crowd away from the parking lot. The situation nearly spun out of control around 7 a.m., when the guard left his post for five minutes, prompting a mass influx of would-be customers eager to receive vouchers good for a 360.
When he returned, the security guard's attempts to get the 100-plus-person crowd to form a line were rebuffed until the arrival of police and a California National Guardsman around 8 a.m. A trio of veteran GameSpotters witnessed the Guardsman quickly take control of the situation and move to the head of the line--where he promptly turned around and asked for a 360 voucher himself. The Guardsman then promptly fled the scene, voucher in hand, leaving police, Target employees, and a visibly agitated crowd to fend for themselves.
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Conclusion: Shoppers are dicks.