Campers

Hope you survived Black Friday … not to mention Scary Saturday and Shocking Sunday.

Every year about this time, you read about people who camp out at certain stores the day before Black Friday — which happens to be Thanksgiving Thursday.

One lady in Beaumont started camping out on WEDNESDAY in front of the Best Buy on Eastex Freeway. She brought a tent, an air mattress and a lawn chair for the two-day ordeal. She even brought her dog, a German shepherd named Rin Tin Tin (a name for a shepherd you don’t see so much anymore).

Last year she camped out at Target. The year before, Best Buy again.

Some folks think these shopper/campers are tenacious consumers who show great fortitude.

I feel a little sorry for them.

Giving up a special day with your family and friends so you can buy more stuff shows the wrong priorities.

Sure, you can get a great deal at that Big Box onwhat used to be called a “loss leader,” an item the store sells below cost just to get customers inside. And there usually aren’t more than a handful of these special goodies. Everything else is available for its usual sale price, which might not be a sale at all.

Christmas gifts are nice, but people are more important than presents.

A cold night on a parking lot is a bad dream, not a holiday memory.