“The other line moves faster.”

- O#'Brian#'s Law

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I must say I had my share of stuffing and turkey and then enjoyed my food coma for several hours on the couch and I needed the sleep, too, because I was going to catch some early bird sales on Friday. From the experience I have taken away two basic facts of this venture: If you are standing outside in the freezing rain for a clerk to open the door then you are quite obviously insane; And if you think being a gentleman is a good thing on this day then you're sadly mistaken. Chivalry is officially suspended from the hours of six and eleven come Black Friday morning.

I remember when I was a boy and my dad would tell me to always hold the door open for a lady. Well on this mad dash into retail, the phrase “ladies first” would mean standing there for several hours smiling while the estrogen train rolls by. I can be polite while I hold the gates of purchase open for two or three ladies, but when it turns into a female pride parade I just had to push my way in with the best of them. Besides, that's why they hire door greeters in the first place.

I have also come to realize that if, like me, you are one of the foolish people trying to get some merchandise marked down at an early hour then you have to develop a prison mentality, which is to say you have to be pulling some serious time to earn respect. If someone asks you how long have you been standing in line and you mention that you just got there about 10 minutes ago you will be blacklisted as a checkout chump. Evidently a “real” shopper gets there four or five hours before the store even opens up to stand in line like some movie geek at a “Star Wars” opening.

You can tell the seasoned shopper from the rookies by what they carry in their hands, as well. A newbie has the flyer the store mailed out a few days prior, while the old guard, or as I like to call them the Grandma Mafia, has had that advertisement memorized for days. They not only have a list of sales priorities but also the store layout and a few clerks on the dole as well. These women are like a band of supermarket swat team members all looking to take their shot at savings.

I'm sure not too far in the future that department store will install bleachers for us guys to watch the women race around the aisles and we can cheer for our favorite ones too. Instead of NASCAR, we can call it NASCART. And we'll watch it for the same reason as traditional racing #- just to watch the crashes.

Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each

Sunday, in The Citizen.

He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com