The goobers gathered in clumps outside their local Best Buy. Warming themselves with thick blankets and hot coffee, they shared tales of grandeur from years past. The lady who dispersed pepper spray in hopes of creating a diversion. The man who tried to high jump over the mob and crowd surf his way to savings. The old woman in the Rascal scooter who tried to park herself at the front of the line ten minutes before the doors opened.

That bitch went down hard, and the rest of these scheming bastards failed just as badly. They were beaten back by a crowd of bloodthirsty cheapskates who would sooner trample their own kin than wait six months for that “doorbuster” TV to hit the same price in the discount bins.

Clear a path, you smelly whores! The time of the goober has come! Their fists are clenched and ready to deal damage to anyone in their way. Scratching, biting, spitting, pulling hair. Fighting the way a drunken Swede fights when cornered. Spouses can be replaced, children’s bones will heal eventually, and God himself would be wise to spend the next few minutes dumpin’ a grumper while his disciples take care of the important business.

You can remind the goobers that only two of each doorbuster exist, and the chances of them getting one are almost nil. They already know. They’re partly here for the deals, but they’re mostly here for the chaos, and a story they’ll someday tell their grandchildren about how Grammy broke a man’s tooth to get a $25 Blu-ray player.

This is violence they can feel good about. Capitalism! Consumerism! Tradition! Patriotism! Black Friday is a fight club for middle-aged suburbanites who have built up an unconscionable amount of rage to channel into a mere 30 seconds. It makes them feel alive.

The night before the doors open, there’s a real sense of community. People wrap themselves in sleeping bags and swap stories and laughs with the other mentally ill people whose relatives haven’t gotten around to committing them to a home yet. They share snacks and make new friends. Then the next morning, they shed all those bonds and instead try to violently shove each other into load-bearing poles while sprinting inside for the deals.

A 50” HDTV for $200! A high-end cellphone for one dollar! Kitchen appliances for $10! Video games for $35! Gold-plated HDMI cables for $99.99 each!

Wait a second. That last one isn’t a deal. You can buy those cables for $3 online. Those bastards snuck in a ruse.

As the store opening gets closer, the crowd turns surly. There are very few of each sale item. The doors will open at 6 p.m., and by 6:03 the entire store will be back to its usual prices. Once the goobers fail to get any doorbusters, they’ll say, “Well, I’m here, so I guess I’ll pick up some other gifts I need.”

Goobers. All of them.

I used to work at a toy store back in high school, so I know these Black Friday goobers. They’re the ones who used to sneak into the back storeroom and open all the sealed cases of Star Wars figures to find the rarest ones. They’re the slack-jawed yokels who always asked me if I worked there, as if I weren’t wearing a polo shirt with a goddamn giraffe on it. They’re the goobers who used to angrily shove newspaper inserts in my face and threaten to sue for false advertising because our nationwide ad was promoting Tickle Me Elmo dolls when our store didn’t have any in stock.

They’re the ones who used to clog our toilets, and then keep flushing them five or six more times until we needed a wet vac to clean up all the toilet water. They’re the people who would sit in the beanbag chairs and make them smell funny. They’re the goons who would walk into the employee break room and angrily demand that someone on their lunch break come out and help them. These are the boners who would accuse me of hoarding the best Starting Lineup baseball figures for myself, which I most certainly did. These are the cheap bastards who would offer to bring me bags of Cheetos or two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew if I called them the next time a fresh case of Hot Wheels cars came on the delivery truck.

These people are the mainstream American public, and they are utterly terrifying. Crowded shopping malls are their homeland. Black Friday is their Kwanzaa. We are in their world, not the other way around. They are the majority, and we should all be very, very afraid.