Six Tips for Surviving the Night

The Holidays will be here soon, and everyone is looking forward to some well deserved time off from studying, recording lectures you’ll never listen to again, and losing hours of your life on Instagram wondering how that girl from your 10 a.m. can afford to go to Reykjavík in the middle of the semester without going broke or failing that class. Everyone will go home and get to see their family, eat copious amounts of food that’s not Chick-Fil-A, and get lectured by that one aunt on the dangers of vaccination. But everyone knows the real reason we still have holidays: Black Friday. The closest thing we have to the Purge highlights our week off with discounts on clothes, tech, and entertainment. That being said, it can be difficult to take full advantage of Black Friday. Lucky for you, the AMP team has your back; this is how to make the most of your next Black Friday.

Keep Hydrated

A long night of Black Friday shopping means walking around endless mall hallways and shopping center parking lots. A long period of such vigorous exercise can easily wear a person out, which may lead to missed deals and discount opportunities. The fix? Take water with you. You won’t have room in the cart for cases of water and a new Playstation, 17 games, a smart TV, and a camera drone, so take after those well-meaning but slightly douchey guys at the gym and walk around with a gallon jug of water. Nothing will keep you hydrated enough to spend quite like a two-liter of Ozarka. The technique to ensure maximum hydration is to drink it all as you enter the store. That will ensure that by the time you’ve fought for what is rightfully yours, your body will be properly hydrated. Just be sure to have drank it all before you stand in an hour long line, as carrying the water everywhere all night will not only be cumbersome, it will prevent you from filling your hands with barely discounted goodies.

Stay Fed

Water isn’t the only thing you’ll need to survive the night. Deals are for winners, and you’ll need a meal fit for champions. Carrying sugary snacks and coffee may be how amateurs do it, but if you want those sweet deals, you’ll need a portable meal packed with protein and nutrients to keep you shopping all night long. If you want to win, this cheap and easy homemade protein shake is the only way to do it; take all the leftover turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, casserole innards, and mashed potatoes and combine them all in a blender for a sweet and savory shake that’ll push you into the wee hours of the morning. The protein-filled turkey and the various carbs and fats from the sides combine to create the ultimate mealreplacement shake. With some milk and blended till smooth, it’s the perfect thing to keep you shopping till you drop.

Stay Fit

Black Friday is a marathon, not a sprint. This beautiful monument to capitalism and consumerism has expanded from business hours Friday, to a nearly 36 hour shopping bacchanalia filled with tired, angry, mouth-foamingly rabid crowds of consumers waiting to knock out a 4-year-old for a slightlydiscounted Sharper Image camera drone. In order to be able to rightfully claim your copy of Sea of Thieves, you need to be in the proper shape to last through the night and fight for that copy of Sea of Thieves, or cheap Xbox One, or Skyrim: Very Special Edition for Amazon Echo. Start working now; cardio will help build the stamina to go from shop to shop and stand at the one open checkout line (out of 40 registers total) at Walmart, and lifting weights will have you in shape to jump people who took the last box of Lebron 16s from the Nike store defend yourself from people trying to jump you because you took the last box of Lebron 16s from the Nike store. Creating a plan to get in shape now will have you there by the time Black Friday rolls around.

Plan It Out

As every JSOM guest speaker says, the key to success is a good plan and detailed schedule. Properly mapping out your shopping spots is the key to maximizing your buy time and copping a haul that any vlogger would be proud of. But to truly optimize your shopping window (those 36 hours just aren’t enough) you need to be ready to go, in the car, at 5 p.m. That means no lazing around in a tryptophan-and-pumpkin-pie-induced stupor till 8:00, before a long trip to the bathroom and then an eventual stumbling into a JCPenney’s this year! The best way to ensure that is to move Thanksgiving dinner back a day. I know, it’s not conventional, but hear me out. You get have the week off anyway, so it’s not like you’re missing school. You get to eat that delicious turkey, baked mac and cheese, and stuffing a day early, and your racist Uncle Stu will still get there Thursday, and by the time he’s giving his best Bill O’Reilly impression, you’ve eaten his food and are on your way to the nearest shopping center for that half-off 30 inch smart TV. Just make sure to throw those leftovers in the blender for that shake.

Stay Safe

With all the belligerent rambunctiousness that happens at Black Friday, some may be looking for ways to stay safe and protect their haul. An easy solution is to reuse your leftover turkey bones as weapons. Before man discovered the destructive potential of metal or stone, they fashioned weapons out of the bones of their bounty. Teeth became blades, femurs became hammers, and claws became some other sharp pokey thing. Since you’ve already finished your Thanksgiving meal, you have plenty of scraps laying around, ready to be fashioned into self-defense tools. With a little old-fashioned American ingenuity, you can turn a wishbone into a slingshot, or ribs into small shivs. These tools are biodegradable, made from reclaimed material, environmentally friendly, and offer a level of concealability and quietude that firearms and traditional cutlery can’t offer.

The Long Line Life Hack

One of the hardest parts of Black Friday is waiting in line. Whether it’s the line ahead of a store opening, or the one at the register, waiting can be unbearable. Through many years of Black Friday shopping, I have refined my technique of getting past the issue of lines. I simply release my giant swarm of bees onto the crowds. The biblical swarm easily drives away crowds, and with a handy beekeeper suit, you can remain unmolested by your winged minions. With the lines gone, your Black Friday competition is significantly reduced, if not eliminated, and you are left to shop to your heart’s content.