Why do people really go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving?

I know the sales are great, but really what motivates people to get up to go shopping at 5 AM on Black Friday? This morning we got up at 7-ish. I probably didn't really get up until 7:30 and Matt had to drag me out of bed at that point. I thought getting up at 7-ish was nuts, but I guess normal people do that daily. Anyway, so we got up and got all 5 of us ready to head out the door.

We went to Menards. Now I am not a big fan of Menards on a normal day. But that is probably the absolute worst store to go to on Black Friday. The reason we went was because they have breaker boxes on sale today (and tomorrow and possibly Sunday???). We were looking for one for the new house. So we go. There were NO carts. We had to carry the girls and try to keep G1 walking beside us. It was not fun. I figured while we were there we would look to see if they have one of the things I want to get for all the kids for Christmas. They of course didn't have what I wanted. We ended up getting nothing. We went into that crazy, over-crowded, would probably get in trouble with the fire marshall store and got nothing. But that's okay.

We went to Lowes to see what they had. They, being the lovely store that they are, had carts-plenty of carts and we were able to walk through without fearing we would lose G1 in the crowd. It was bliss after Menards. We ended up getting the breaker box there for the same price we would have paid at Menards. I decided that anything we need for the house will definitely come from Lowes. They have much better customer service than Menards and they don't have crap all over the place blocking the aisles.

I really can't imagine heading to the mall at the crack of dawn and hitting all the over crowded stores, especially not with the kids. And yet there are people that hit every store in town every year after year after year after year....... Seriously what are they thinking??? It's cold and stressful and *to me* just the most horrible experience ever. Now that is not to say that I will not be going shopping later today, just not at 5 AM. I don't think it's too bad in the afternoon-well except at Wal-Mart. But that's an every other day of the year thing.

Well, I think my rant (or whatever you would call this) is over now. Maybe if I go out later I will have more to add, but until then..........