I briefly entertained the notion of doing something resembling journalism and getting in line at 4:00am Friday, just so I could report back to you all on the madness. Fortunately I came to my senses long enough to know that 20% of the people in line at Best Buy were likely to be journalists doing the same thing, so I stayed safely in bed.

I did venture out, though, primarily to buy myself some DVDs. While in the extraordinarily long and serpentine queue, I was less than delighted to turn a corner and discover that someone had thrown up all over the floor next to the display refrigerators. This did not deter the intrepid shoppers at all, mind you, who simply held their noses and navigated around it, loss leader portable DVD players hugged to their chests like digital newborns. When the line finally approached the actual registers, the fellow in front of me told the line manager about the biohazard around the corner.

"Hey, dude, someone up-chucked back there."

"What?"

"You know, up-chucked. Threw up. Vomited."

"Oh, you'll need to go to the customer service desk about that."

I glanced that direction, and flashed back to 1980s-era Moscow bread lines. Oh well, I got my stuff, let someone else deal with it. It's the American way.