www.roanoke.com

There is a day, once a year, when the skies are darker, the air is just a bit colder, everybody returns to his base animal instincts and your cereal gets soggy in the milk a little bit faster than normal.

This day is Black Friday. It's the day after Thanksgiving, the "official" start of the holiday shopping season and often the biggest shopping day of the year.

The name "Black Friday" comes from the use of black ink in businesses' records to denote a profit (inversely, red ink is used to show financial loss). But it could also be said the name comes from how it is pitch black when the shopping frenzy begins as early as 5 or 6 a.m. or how the "blackness" of the human soul is brought to light in every shopping mall across the country.

Intrigued by this phenomena, I set out about a week before Black Friday to collect information from Roanoke's epicenter of crazed holiday shopping: Valley View Mall. I arrived there about 1 p.m., and the mall was already filled to the brim; I barely managed to find a parking spot. Long lines and crowds made stores difficult to maneuver, and the Robotic Christmas Bears were already singing (and Thanksgiving hadn't even occurred yet!).

Because of the heavy traffic, the vendors of Valley View Mall were difficult to get ahold of, but I managed to speak with a few veterans of the retail trade who had lived through Black Friday in years past. I got a lot of answers, most of which were the same: It is an insane day. There is no parking, people wait in huge lines early in the morning and even fight one another over merchandise.

I was pretty surprised. I had heard of the madness that occurs when shopping, but could it truly be that bad? Is this the new meaning of "Christmas spirit" -- to destroy everything in your path when buying a gift, instead of simply giving? It was then that for the sake of journalism I decided to see firsthand what Black Friday truly is.

November 25. My alarm sounded with an obnoxious buzz at 4:30 a.m. After a shower and breakfast, I drove to the Valley View area for the beginning of the shopping day. I parked my car on the outskirts of the Target lot, close to the exit ramp so I could make a quick and simple escape. Camera in hand, coat around me and wits about me, I approached Target. The time was 5:20, and the line was long and strong; these shoppers were anxiously awaiting the 6 a.m. opening of the store and the plethora of good deals within its doors.

I walked into Best Buy close to 5:30, and the store was nearly packed to its limit. Every aisle had at least 10 people looking at everything there was to look at. The winding checkout line extended more than halfway across the store, and I was told later that day that it took as long as 2 ½ hours to get through it.

I quickly saw the hazard of staying at Best Buy and walked through the ice-cold darkness to a shining beacon of commercialism: Wal-Mart.

With nearly everything in existence for sale at lower prices than usual, Wal-Mart was as crowded as expected. The store's electronics section had the most fiendish line. I found myself getting stuck between crowds and lines of every sort, but I managed to cut through the women's underwear section and made my escape.

Valley View Mall itself was next on the Insane Shopping Day agenda.

I arrived at Sears, and was surprised to see such a short line. But, as I walked closer to the entrance I realized that Sears has multiple entrances, which means attacks on multiple fronts. Sure enough, as soon as I entered the mall, there were two gigantic lines of shoppers outside Sears, one on each floor, all waiting for the 6 a.m. opening.

At this time, the actual mall was surprisingly empty, all of the action being contained in the respective stores that were open. But as time crawled on, the number of shoppers shot up exponentially. By 7 a.m., Valley View was as bustling as it would be on a normal weekend afternoon, if not more so.

Meanwhile, back at Target, an hour and a half after the opening, the store's front area was completely congested with customers waiting to check out. The only way to leave the store without plowing through a thick wall of people was to cut through the clothing section and go out the entrance. At this time, Target's parking lot was completely filled as well; people desperate enough even parked on the grass above the curb.

Later on in the morning, Valley View Mall was officially the busiest and most insane I had ever seen it in my life. In every pathway, there were at least five dozen people walking the other way, like a wave of frantic ants somehow able to carry shopping bags in all six of their legs. About noon (which was close to seven hours after my arrival on the Black Friday scene), I decided to get out of the madness while it was still possible and hastily left the mall as if a mob were chasing me (but really, the mob was going the other way, toward the discounted clothes).

So, what did I gather from my day of Black Friday research? Basically, this is the one day of the year when everyone goes completely and utterly insane. At Valley View it wasn't as bad as I thought: There were no fights over the last pair of pants (which I was actually looking forward to). However, the day is still absolutely nuts. In every possible place, there is a line. Everywhere. Not even the food places are safe; they have their own mini Black Friday lines, as do the restrooms. Never before had I heard more shoplifting alarms go off (I'm pretty sure I heard at least 20) or couples bicker about what to get or where to go or which one of these is the one that your sister Gabby wants.

This was also the first time I saw cellphones used as walkie-talkies to locate someone else in the same building (or room). But, I noticed the most peculiar phenomenon: When in the mall or a store, I did not feel the least bit fatigued, even though I only slept for four hours. Could it be that there is some magical shopping energy in the air that powers people just enough to buy everything they possibly can?

Another strange thing happened. When I was sandwiched between the mobs of people going in every direction, and every time I walked a certain way only to find a dead end in the form of a hideously elongated line for the cashier, something clicked in me; suddenly, all of the things I had heard or read about the evils of capitalism and how material goods corrupt us humans began to make sense. Perhaps communism began when Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin each decided to go out shopping after Thanksgiving.

There are times in some people's lives when all their beliefs about humanity, faith in the good nature of other people and ideas about how the world works are thrown out the window. I think that day for me was Black Friday.