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Seeing the chaos that ensued in malls across America today over the new Nike Air Jordans released to the public, I'm starting to doubt the hype of the hot holiday toy has anything to do with kids. You know what I'm talking about. Every year there's one of those "must get toys" that sends parents scrambling because they're terrified of disappointing their kiddo on Christmas morning.
But the melee in the malls this morning made it pretty darn clear who really gets their panties in a bunch when material goods don't materialize. People were being pepper sprayed this morning as they got out of hand while trying to get at the reissue of the Air Jordan XI Retro Concord. PEPPER sprayed!
For a pair of shoes? Come on people! You're going to step in gum with these things, wear them into a public restroom, drip pizza grease on 'em, throw them under your bed! OK, so it's an exact replica of the shoes Nike released back in 1996. And Michael Jordan remains the best basketball player of all time. But let's talk about what happened across the country this morning.
In Lithonia, Georgia, cops had to break a car window to rescue two toddlers abandoned by their mother as she went into the shoe store to get her sneakers. Also in Lithonia, cops arrested not one, not two, but FOUR people because they broke down the door of the store to get at the sneakers. In Indianapolis, shoppers literally ripped a store's door from its hinges. When one Footlocker ran out of shoes, cops had to be called to control the angry horde of people. In Troy, Michigan, a kid caught in the throng of sneaker-hungry shoppers was hurt so badly that cops think his arm was broken.
And then, of course, there's that pepper spray, whipped out by cops in Seattle, where shoppers were fighting with one another over line cutting. See what I mean about the adults acting more juvenile than the 6-year-old who didn't get her sold out Lalaloopsy doll? We used to push and shove in the lunch line, but all it took was a sharp word from the cafeteria monitor, and we settled right down. No one ever had to use a dangerous chemical to keep us from an uprising before we'd gotten our tray of Tater Tots.
It's no wonder Black Friday becomes a disastrous frenzy of parents fighting over toys "for the kids." We're obviously nuts when we want something for ourselves. Then when we take on powerful parenting mode, we're more or less unstoppable!
If the adults can't step back and realize that even a pair of retro Air Jordans are JUST A PAIR OF SHOES, is it any wonder parents quake in their Uggs when the kids start paging through the "holiday toy catalogs"?
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