Doorbusters (1)

The Omnimax. Shit. It's been five years since I hit the Omnimax. It's been five years since I told myself I would never go back. That's a hellish life, hitting the sales as hard as possible, getting what you can and getting out while you still can. After a while, even a hard man longs for a quiet living. He swears to live out the days that remain to him in peace, far from the megastores, far from the crowds and the screams of the dying and the screams of the living.

But times change, you know. We have to bring up the next generation. And the next generation wants things. My Bruno, he reads the circulars. I tell him not to, but he picks them out of the gutter. And the circulars tell him things. They tell him: there's a sale, Bruno. It's a big sale. We're having a big HUGE sale at the Omnimax, Bruno, and all the shit you've ever wanted is here, it's cheap, we're practically GIVING IT AWAY.

But there's a catch, Bruno, the goddamn circulars tell my boy. You can get that Panaround Triddy for fifty bucks, cash or charge – but you gotta be one of the first fifty through the door. And it's one day only, Bruno. One day.

Black Friday.

I try to talk him out of it. Bruno, I tell him, it's a trap. You KNOW it's a trap. They want you bad. But Bruno's not listening. He's thinking of a fifty dollar triddy in his living room. How bad can it be? So my Bruno figures he'll round up some of his buddies, all tough kids, and they'll hit the Omnimax hard.

Oh, Bruno. You're a good boy, but you wouldn't last five minutes in the Omnimax. Not on Black Friday.

So I tell him I'll come along. We'll make a run of it, me and him and his pals. Maybe we'll even score a nice triddy. Bruno's over the moon. Thanks, da, thanks, he says, tears in his eyes. Sure, boy, I tell him. I don't tell him that I lied to him earlier. The Omnimax doesn't want him bad.

It wants ME.

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Doorbusters (2)

As the twins start loading triddy boxes into the Shopping Cart's basket, I hit the cutoff on the flamethrower's juice. Bruno shouts in alarm as the pilot flame goes out.

Sorry, kid, I tell him. No flames in the store. Omnimax doesn't give two shits what happens outside the store, and they're not going to be upset over a little structural damage to the door itself. But open flames inside the store are apt to damage the merchandise, and stores take that kind of business very seriously.

Irina asks about bullets. Live ammunition is different. You can shoot all you want in a store. They actually encourage it; free reloads are available in Hunting and Fishing. But the Omnimax enforces a strict 'You Shot It, You Bought It' policy. And the stores may put up with a little recreational shopper-on-shopper violence, but they're very strict on the topic of shoplifting. If at any point Omnimax determines that you owe them money, they're going to collect before you leave the store.

So the moral of the story, I conclude, is: slay it, don't spray it. Har har.
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