It's gotta be the shoes!
I admit that I have no sense of fashion so it probably comes as a surprise to no one that I can’t envision ever spending $175 on a pair of sneakers. Or, for that matter, camping out in a line to be the first to buy them.
But apparently there are a lot of other people who can:
MESQUITE, Texas – Mesquite police early Thursday used pepper spray to control an unruly crowd of sneaker shoppers.
The incident happened at Towne East Mall, where dozens of people had lined up top buy Nike’s new Air Jordan 11 Retro, which went on sale at 6 a.m.
Sisters Laurie and Lorraine Martinez, who said they had been in line since 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, described the scene as frightening and chaotic.
“Nothing like I’ve ever experienced before,” Lorraine Martinez said. “I got pushed in a corner and we all got maced. And if it wasn’t for my sister covering my face, I think my face would have ended up worse … our noses are burning.”
Apparently some of the people who hadn’t gotten there early decided their best chance at getting the coveted footwear was to ignore all the early birds and try to move to the front of the line:
“At 4:30 the people at the back of line decided to bum rush and run to the doors … As much as we tried to tell people to move, they wouldn’t. So [police] started macing,” Laurie Martinez said.
She also said some people in the crowd were able to force open a door to the shoe store and get inside, although the sisters were not able to enter.
“I still haven’t gotten my Jordans,” Laurie Martinez said. “I’ll never do this again. It was my first time. I’ve never done it before but I’ll never do it again.”
All of this is pretty stunningly stupid to begin with, but the cherry that tops off this sundae of suck is who the sisters quoted in this news article feel is to blame for the fiasco:
The sisters blame the mall and the store for the melee, calling the event disorganized. They said customers should have received numbers securing their places in line.
“So that this doesn’t happen. And this store, they just let everyone bum rush and act like crazy animals. And then everybody has to pay,” Lauire Martinez said.
That’s right. It’s not the fault of the assholes that things got out of hand, it’s the fault of the mall and the store. Apparently the fact that some people are so obsessed over sneakers that they felt the need to line up to be the first to buy them and were willing to act like rabid animals in a bid to get them doesn’t register as a twisted sense of priorities for these two.
For fuck’s sake, people. They’re just sneakers. They’ll make more. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to waste your money on them in the days to come. It’s not like having them is going to turn you into Michael Jordan so calm the fuck down.