The night of Thanksgiving, all the children were gathered in the living room sitting on their phones and arguing as usual. Screaming matches ignited from nothing. The aggressive tension filled the room as dirty looks and nasty names were thrown effortlessly at one another. As soon as blankets and pillows were thrown across the room aggressively our parents had to step in. They conjured a plan to go Black Friday shopping as a team and pick out a new television that was on Rollback at Walmart. Being a bunch of whiny teenagers, we didn’t willingly want to go, but our parents forced us so they could share a moment of peace and quiet for an hour or so. We trudged into my grandma’s minivan for an unwanted trip down the road, but unknown to us it was going to be a night for the books.

The flickering of the lights of the Walmart sign lured over the sea of cars stacked one by one in the parking lot. Standing on the faded truncated domes outside the store, it felt as if I were in a trance. The serenity was a blissful thought until the sliding doors of a chaotic hell opened. Almost instantaneously, the trance from the enticing light broke. The reality of this barbaric holiday hit and determination was plastered across our faces as we headed into the store.           

On a mission to get a new television, my brothers, cousins, and I stepped foot into the dystopia that we call Walmart. Racing straight back to the electronics section, we passed what seemed to be like a zoo of wild animals fighting over scraps of leftover meat. A family store for your everyday necessities flourished into a wild panic at midnight and where all morals were left at the doors. Parents and children crying, mothers fighting over new edition cosmetics and soccer balls, and impatient kids sprawled over the floor. Shelves and aisles were clearing out one by one with families being pushed so close together that inevitably creating a mass of people. Although the gargantuan mass of people held a steady form, this did not stop a group of rambunctious teenagers from pushing through. We held our breath as we continued pushing through the musty aroma that filled the aisles until we reached the electronics section. All previous arguments and disputes became pointless and all that mattered was getting that brand-new television.  

Then after an hour of my older brother, Chris, talking to the man working the desk at electronics section, they notified us about the situation where all the rollback televisions were out of stock, but we could pay a small fee for a promo code which would allow for a similar deal on a different television. Reviewing the details of the purchase with the store clerk was our last grimace of hope and ages later after some boring conversation about TVs we decided to wait in line for the next two and a half hours. Although everybody became very peevish towards the end of our spree of one item, we all knew that it would be worth the wait in the end because we would’ve accomplished something as a team and prove our parents wrong. Then suddenly, a middle-aged man and his cart full of heavy electronics and toys cut in front of me and ran over my toes with his cart. My brother and cousin shouted out after him and all the man did was turn back and smirk, while his son turned back and looked apathetically towards me whispered an apology. I gave him a warm half smile as my grandma finished checking out. Chris helped me back to car and we went our way home to check out our new promo code.

Once we arrived home, all five of us flopped down on the couch watching reruns of game shows in exhaustion while the adults sat in the kitchen and argued over the promo code that we previously purchased. Not much later, my cousin and brother helped me upstairs, so we could all avoid the constant bickering after my dad checked out my discolored, swollen toes. All five of us continued watching game shows in the upstairs room and we sat in silence for a moment until we started bursting out laughing. I wasn’t sure if it was because we were delusional from exhaustion or our parents being hypocritical about having dumb arguments, but I did know our bond was special. As relatives, we argue, fight and say things we may not always mean, but in the end, we are always there for each other and have each other’s backs. As I laid on the couch listening to everyone play board games and talk, I reminisced on the events of that night where we shimmied through the aisles, argued at a store clerk, and even yelled at a middle aged man with no sense of empathy for a child’s foot and realized that we all did it together, helping each other along the way and being there for one another.