So you weren’t able to catch a deployment and now you’re forced to spend the holidays with your family? Sorry to hear it, buddy. It happens to the best of us.

Most years, you’d be overseas, driving bright-eyed, idealistic State Department kids around the streets of Kabul while you smoke Marlboro Reds and wear a low-vis plate carrier underneath your plaid button-up.

But this year, you’re back in the United States, where you’re listening to your irritating children (who seem to grow in number each year) drone on about the latest gadget they want to buy with your six-figure salary.

Your wife’s family is over for Thanksgiving, and you’re being asked when you’re going to quit your dangerous job and settle down here in the States (LOL AS IF).

Unfortunately, the answer is probably never. How are you going to pull in $150,000 a year with no college degree stateside? These kids have expensive tastes!

Speaking of expensive, your wife is making you go out on Black Friday! Obviously, this sucks, being that you are a hardcore operator and all. Operators hate spending time with their families, they hate shopping, and they hate crowds. You’re no exception.

So how do you get through it? The lines, the mall, the ridiculously low prices?

We’ve got you covered. Here are seven high-speed, low-drag Black Friday survival tips for true operators:

1. Don’t show up

Look, I know I said these would be tricks to survive Black Friday, but if there is even the slightest chance you can somehow shirk your way out of this one, do it. Black Friday is a hellish cesspool of angry parents buying expensive crap for ungrateful children.

If a last-minute deployment comes up, or you can somehow manage to injure yourself in a non-permanent way, or if you can get strep throat (this might require hanging around daycares and looking for sick kids, an activity that some people frown upon), then GET IT DONE.

You can’t die in a war if you never show up to the warzone.

2. Perform Reconnaissance

You wouldn’t set up a meeting in Baghdad without an advance team, so why would you go to a Black Friday sale without recon? You’ll need to figure out where and when you’ll be going, right? Right!

Your best bet is to leave the table after Thanksgiving evening and tell your wife you’re going to save a spot in line.

Head out to the car with everything you need for a 24-hour op with no resupply. Be convincing. Pack chairs, blankets and clothes. Maybe even some instant coffee and Copenhagen Long Cut. Back out of the driveway and wave to your family.

Then (and this is the essential part) drive to the nearest bar and start drinking. When your family shows up the next morning, tell them you had to pee and someone stole your spot in line. Perfect!

3. Optimize your every day carry

Look, I get it. You’re an operator. You need to carry a Glock, a backup Glock, six mags, three knives, an electric shaver, five coins (to prove operator status), your Boy Scout Badges, tampons (for bullet wounds!), a watch, a phone, and an extra pair of shoelaces should you decide to hang yourself out of spite.

But let me level with you: the only thing you’re going to need to carry on Black Friday is a massive flask:

Fill it with whatever beverage you want, and watch the day turn into a very pleasant one indeed.

4. Take cover in the mall bathroom

Why is it that whenever you need to pee, there never seems to be a mall bathroom around, but when you don’t, they’re everywhere?

Ditch the crowds, your wife, her family and your offspring by telling them you’re going to check out the deals at Wilson’s Leather (hint: no woman ever wants to go look at leather jackets with you). Then find the furthest bathroom, use Combatives to clear the stalls, and sit yourself down. Just make sure you stop by Barnes and Noble first for some reading material, or you’ll get bored pretty quickly.

5. Bring a battle buddy

Look, no self-respecting single operator will come out and brave the smelly crowds of cash-wielding, deal-crazy fanatics with you. That being said, you might be able to wrangle up a married friend to brave the Black Friday maelstrom with you.

It’s like a double date! Your wives will chit chat about deals while you and the bro take turns trying to disappear long enough to go sit in the furniture section and take a nap. It’s a long shot, but it might work.

6. Run away during an inevitable brawl

https://youtu.be/KK2XFYL3D80

There are going to be fights, brawls, tussles, and scrabbles during Black Friday. It wouldn’t be an American tradition if there weren’t!

As someone who spent more time in the Middle East than most people spend in college, you’re a master of chaos. In order to find the fights, stay near entrances, checkouts and other chokepoints and wait for an inevitable brawl to break out. When it does, grab your wife by the back of her jacket and lead her out of the danger area, Executive Protection Style.

Then tell her that you can’t come back because it’s too dangerous. She has to believe you; you do this for a living!

7. Give “the internet” a try

Life in Mazar-e-Sharif or Erbil is so simple. You worry about ammo, immediate action drills and how much weight you’re going to squat at the gym.

During your time overseas, though, some smarty-pants types began developing an amazing device called “the internet.” It is on the cusp of revolutionizing the world, and some people even figured out how to sell things on it.

I know, it sounds crazy. How can you shop on your computer? Without even leaving the house?

Well it’s possible. All you have to do is navigate to the World Wide Web address you want to shop at and browse the selection.

No lines. No fights (except the one with your wife over young Billy’s proclivity toward lighting things on fire, which you support and she doesn’t, which is nonsense because any young boy who lights things on fire is okay in your book, and furthermore an interest in combustibles sets him up for a great career as a demolitions expert or EOD technician, which is one of only a handful of ways he could ever make you proud, the way you could never make your father proud, a fact you remember saliently every Thanksgiving after he was trampled to death on Black Friday in 1999).

Try online shopping. I guarantee you won’t get trampled to death.

Thanks for reading. Like, share and comment! Tell us how you’d survive Black Friday if you had to go out.

Know what we're sayin fam?







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