Bleak Friday: The Game of Discount Discontentment
33This year, you don't even have to leave the house, or turn on a computer, to experience the frustration of Black Friday shopping. Meh presents Bleak Friday: The Game of Discount Disappointment! Just download and print the game board and game cards and start having absolutely no fun at all!
RULES
- Rustle up some kind of tokens for each player. Pennies would make sense. Worthless metal slugs would make even more sense.
- Place your tokens on one of the "Start Here" spaces, on either the "Shop Online" or "Brick and Mortar" paths. Hey, you're already only a couple of spaces away from "Gift Shopping Bliss"! This is gonna be easy, right?
- Shuffle the cards, place the pile face down, and draw one. Follow the instructions to move your token. "Forward" means toward "Gift Shopping Bliss". "Back" means toward "Screw it and Go Back to Bed."
- WINNING: You can't, just like the real Black Friday. Theoretically you're supposed to reach "Gift Shopping Bliss", but if you follow the rules, you never will. The only way to really win is not to play. Let's all have a WarGames moment and reflect on what that means for our lives.
We've left a few blank cards on the sheets so you can make your own cards to accurately reflect your own murderous shopping rage. And of course, you're free to make up your own rules, add drinking-game elements, or anything else you want to do. The only law of Bleak Friday and Black Friday alike is "By any means necessary." Share your Bleak Friday cards and variants in the thread below!
Bleak Friday: The Game of Discount Discontentment is our Thanksgiving gift to you, and it's worth every cent you'll pay for it. Gather the family around the table and play the game that's every bit as fun as Black Friday shopping. Yes, it really is that bad.
Bleak Friday game board and game cards (PDF downloads)
- 24 comments, 17 replies
- Comment
This. This is awesome.
I love you. Like a cousin, if I actually loved my cousins.
"Fist fight breaks out in next aisle. Take shopping cart of loser. Move 1 space ahead."
@JasonToon - Hahaha I believe you have captured the true holiday spirit! Hilarious!
"Hit a speedbump going too fast, while trying to steal a parking space from an old lady, get scalded by hot coffee. Lose a turn."
"Camp out for 3 days, get in the door first, get everything you came for. Move forward to Gift Shopping Bliss.
Hug your cheaply made products and hope they replace the warmth of the family you missed seeing so you could buy cheap things for 15% off. Winning this game is losing."
"Literally just a pile of used
facial tissue in this cart.
Oh, well, it's the last one left."
@mossygreen i have to wonder if that means excitement over the last tissues or last cart....
@MsELizardBeth I literally thought it was about the tissues!
During Thanksgiving dinner with family, ask everyone whether they're going Black Friday shopping. Everyone says NONONO. Meet them all in the parking lot at midnight, pretend not to know each other. Move back one.
"Woman next to you buying deeply discounted items continually rants about how slow the line is moving compared to the full-priced store*. Lose a turn."
@narfcake online shopping blunder: business ships your newly purchased item on the following business day. Move back two spaces
@capguncowboy Heh!, although to be truthful, it does happen. In their earlier days of TeeTurtle (post grammar lesson, pre-daily site crash), I had shirts arrive in 2 days via regular mail. On the flip side, the "shipping from the St. Louis office" was their hindrance too as they grew; later orders took weeks to pack and ship, backlogged with thousands of orders; CS more than made up for the delays.
@narfcake I buy and sell a lot of mini bike stuff while building bikes as a hobby. Most everything that I ship via the USPS is delivered two days later. The only exception is when it's delivered to a REALLY RURAL area
@capguncowboy You missed the part about being a lawyer.
@Thumperchick lol
@Thumperchick "Customer pulls a DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!? stunt. Fellow customers cheer on as said customer is shamed after being told to go away. Move ahead 3 spaces."
"New register opens. Move 2 spaces ahead.
Person ahead of you writes a check. Move 1 space back."
@narfcake the spaces back*
Checks are the bane of my shopping experience. Get a checkcard already!
Actually, couponers are much worse
@capguncowboy I'm a couponer. :p Not an extreme one, though.
How about a nice game of chess?
So awesome.
I think I just won.
"SO asks to go shopping with friends and asks you to stay home to watch the kids. You stay up until Meh.com's new item, overpriced head phones, becomes available. Turn off your alarm and go to bed with a smile on your face. You've won the game and at life... This time"
Pennies already are worthless metal slugs. I think it's better to use them because they are masquerading as useable money.
@SSteve Maybe it bothers me more than it should, but man, I hate handling pennies. Also... "pennies? Meh." LOL.
@PocketBrain @SSteve I'm with you both, I almost always dump any change I get back into the tip jar to kill two birds with one stone, I don't have to carry change and they get a tip.
"Sore ass after being repeated rammed by shopping carts, baby strollers, and mobility scooters. Move back 5 spaces."
@narfcake "Sore ass after being repeated rammed…"
"The customer in front of you has a accident. Of the urine variety. Go back two spaces while they try to find a mop and bleach."
@pmavers Triple the number of spaces if you may have touched it. Homie don't roll with that.
@pmavers yeah like they’re going to use bleach. Keep dreaming. I was at McDs once and saw a worker wipe up vomit with a paper towel. No bleach, no spray cleaner. Nothing. They didn’t even get it all.
I bet you could make a strategic game out of this: everyone has two cards, each turn you can play one of them (and draw a new one), but you can only play it on someone else. Game over when someone loses and whoever moved back the least wins.
You guys really rock!
Great game guys!!!
You need to get Wil Wheaton to play this on TableTop.
Play a new game: park and sit in driver's seat with back-up lights on.
@packet No fair stealing from a popular SomeECard!
Fight the crowd to grab that last 50" TV on super sale. Stand in line for 45 minutes to pay for it. Credit card declined. Go back to start!
@BelyndaG Ooooh, ouch.
Discontentment, you say?
