Out In The Cold

There is an annual event here in Louisville. On Bardstown Road all the shops stay open til 10:00 pm, some serve little snacks, hot cider, and other things to get you to come in. One off-beat movie rental place even had a Meatloaf impersonator singing karaoke. I have to admit he was pretty good and even looked like Mr. Loaf.
My girlfriend said she wanted to go out and enjoy this annual event. Not really understanding the point of it, and not wanting to seem like a stick-in-the-mud I decided to go along. The first place we went was a bookshop. It was crowded because it was supposed to be crowded. That was the point of the whole event - get people out. I'm not talking just a little crowded either, but shoulder to shoulder, shuffle and excuse yourself all the way through the store. It didn't seem like fun, but perhaps I was missing something.
Next we went to the movie rental place. It was a bit of a walk away, and there wasn't much to see or do in between. The rental place wasn't as crowded, but it was also just the same ol' movie rental place it was that afternoon, the day before, and is probably right now - minus the Meatloaf impersonator of course.
After that we decided to head back home since we'd been out a while. As we got closer to home we got back into a crowd on the sidewalk and had to slow down to a speed that I call the "mall shuffle". It suddenly occurred to me that this was really as good as it got. I then asked my girlfriend what it was all about. She told me that humans are social creatures by nature and it was about getting out and mixing. She seemed perfectly happy with our experience, but I must point out we hadn't had a bit of interaction with anyone except each other the entire night. And at the moment we were stuck in a crowd. I pointed out that we weren't mixing with anyone but rather we had become part of a herd and we were literally just herding down the sidewalk. If that was her idea of social interaction then Black Friday must be one of the most joyous days of the year. I could be wrong, but it seemed like a just another very crowded shopping day. It's great for the shop-owners, but I didn't see the advantage to the shoppers besides long lines and congestion. And she thinks I'M crazy because I didn't like it.