By the Dawn's Early Light

Dick Gregory, a black comedian who spoofed the problems of black people a generation ago had a line regarding his bad luck which went something like this: "I decided to stage a sit-in but THEY INTEGRATED."

This morning, at a time when one cannot recognize his friend, I rose to join the annual pilgrimage to commercial Mecca and participate in the Black Friday events. The destination of my choice was the Best Buy store in Paramus. I had been considering the purchase of a computer which happened to be one of the items listed on the "doorbuster" flier that accompanied yesterday's local newspaper. The price was considerably lower than the already low price it had been selling for just a few days ago.

I opted not to try the Best Buy at the Palisades Mall, a gargantuan palace of retail commerce which on the slowest of days typically has a full parking lot and requires endless walking to reach a particular store. Especially on this day, with the multitude of Black Friday bargains to be had at many stores in the mall I judged the expected crowding to be more than a trip there was worth. The Paramus location is somewhat differently situated with the store entrance right off the parking lot and without other neighboring stores offering fantastic bargains.

I arrived a few minutes early for the 5AM opening and the line, while long, did not look at all daunting. There were some vagabonds among the crowd regaling the onlookers with a cacophony of drumbeats from portable drums. When the line began to move, they took off and we thought they were off to give some other hapless shoppers a dose of their entertainment, but they quickly returned to the line after stowing their tom toms in the trunk of their car.

The line began moving rapidly as (we thought) the first shoppers were led into the cavernous interior of the store. After we got about halfway, the line came to a jolting halt. Since we were around the corner from the entrance, we couldn't see what was holding up the line and chalked it up to a breather before the line began to move again. Only it didn't.

One of my fellow queuers sent his daughter to scout out the delay. She soon returned with the news that the police were arguing with the store personnel and that there were four police cars at the entrance. It turns out that the quaint city of Paramus has a law on its books that prohibits certain stores from opening for business before 7AM. So that was it. Fortunately for me and my acquisitive nature, I espied one of my nephews patiently waiting in line, considerably ahead of me. I told him what I was looking for and he said he would try to get it for me.

I came home and went back to sleep.