Three Years Ago: Black Friday Blues

I didn’t even want to go to Manchester.

“You realise why there’s so much traffic don’t you? I asked my wife. “It’s Black Friday.”

“Oh I forgot about that! But it’s the only day I’ll have off before Christmas,” she replied. “We’ll see how busy it is when we get near the centre.”

“What we going for anyway?”

“Pyjamas for your Mum.”

“That’s it?! All the way to town for pyjamas? Why don’t we get them in Middleton?”

“She only likes them from Primark.”

I knew we were doomed as soon as she mentioned Primark.

About half way to Manchester city centre a car suddenly torpedoed out from a side street straight into us. I was leaning against the door and had about two seconds to brace myself before the collision. Appropriately enough this took place outside a funeral home. My wife works in the funeral business. Always on duty.

I clambered out of the car. “Talk about *#%~>$€ Black Friday! I didn’t even want to go to bloody Manchester!”

The other driver was distressed and extremely apologetic. I told her that it was okay-we didn’t have the kids in the car and nobody was badly hurt. My shoulder and hip was bruised from taking the full force of the impact, and I had to go to the local A&E department to be checked out. I had to hold onto the door handle all the way there.

We pulled up outside the hospital, me managing to close the door after four slams which must have attracted the interest of every traffic warden in the area.

Parked on a busy main road, as she got out of the car my wife said to me: “Pull my mirror in.” 

Really:

We don’t want a passing motorist to damage the wing mirror now do we? It’s best to be safe.

Happy Black Friday everyone. 

Let’s do this every year.

Black Friday Champ

Thought For The Day

I considered standing outside the doors of the local superstore before they opened at midnight on Black Friday, shouting:

“Remember people, you will save even more money if you don’t buy anything at all!”

but I didn’t think that they would be eloquent enough to stand as my last words when I am killed in the stampede.

Black Friday Blues

Chaos. Utter, crazed, consumer chaos. Imported from the US to cause mayhem on our shores.

People fighting over flat screen televisions that must surely have been smashed to bits in the process. People getting injured. People being arrested. Shoppers refusing to leave stores when all of the special deals have run out. People rolling in the aisles as a bemused guy stands in the middle of it all with a look that said ‘I only came in for a tin of beans.’

Chaos

I normally steer well clear of such media-orchestrated stampedes, but it just so happened that my wife’s day off coincided with this day of all days, when all she wanted us to do was to nip into Manchester, pick up some pyjamas for my Mum, for Christmas, and maybe have some lunch. Such a simple wish list should surely have helped us to avoid all of the animal instinctive madness, shouldn’t it?

We never made into Manchester.

As we headed along the main road into town, a car on a side street suddenly ploughed into our passenger side, into the door I was leaning against. My wife did an admirable job of keeping control as we were shunted sideways.

I ended up in A&E having my hip and jaw checked out, and an X-Ray of my shoulder revealed that thankfully it was only bruised.

It could have been a lot worse. Both my wife and I, along with the driver of the other car, escaped serious injury. And I am grateful that our children weren’t travelling with us.

I didn’t even want to go to flaming Manchester- we only went for those pyjamas! I think I will give my Mum vouchers.

Happy Black Friday everyone. Let’s do it again next year.