"Attention Wal-Mart shoppers, you have just been pepper sprayed!" Welcome to the 2011 version of Black Friday.

"Quit being such a baby! It's a food product, essentially."

Courtesy of the Guardian:

Shoppers in the US kicked off their annual "Black Friday" orgy of consumerism amid scenes of pushing, pulling, running and – in one case – pepper-spraying their way through the doors of the nation's shops and malls. 

The annual tradition, when many stores open early with cut-price sales on the day after Thanksgiving, has become a source of controversy amid frequent scenes of near-rioting and injuries as mobs of people crowd into big-name shops. 

But few can have expected even the most determined of bargain-hunters to adopt the brutal tactics of one female shopper in a Los Angeles suburb who attacked her rivals with pepper-spray: a substance more recently associated with police brutality against Occupy Wall Street protesters. 

At least 20 people, including several children, were injured as the woman deployed her weapon. "I heard screaming and I heard yelling. Moments later my throat stung. I was coughing really bad," said Matthew Lopez, a shopper who recounted his story to the Los Angeles Times. 

The woman, whom witnesses said appeared to be defending an X-Box games console, has not been found or yet identified. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the gigantic store remained open amid the mayhem and other shoppers continued to roam the aisles filling their trolleys with goods. 

The incident occurred late on Thanksgiving evening as the Walmart – like some other stores – had pushed back its Black Friday opening to begin late on Thursday.

You know it's stories like this that make me wonder what the hell is wrong with people?

I mean here we are in the year 2011, so intellectually evolved that we have created a virtual Utopian society (For those that can afford it), and yet under the correct circumstances were are still capable of such incredibly primitive responses we might just as well still be in the back of a cave fighting over a Mastodon leg.

Personally this whole Black Friday thing is something that I avoid like the plague. I like to save money as much as anybody else but will not sacrifice my dignity by standing in the freezing cold for hours outside of a big box store, nor sacrifice my humanity by trampling my fellow human beings just to save a couple of dollars.

On Christmas day I would like to proudly stand up and tell my family members, "I may have spent more than I should have, and perhaps I did not get you the top of line gift that you asked for, but I can assure you that none of your fellow human beings were sucker punched, pepper sprayed, or tasered in the purchase of these items. "

Of course that kind of thinking may place me in the minority. But oh well, when I have I NOT been in the minority?