“It was two years ago, we were at Kohl’s, and my mom told me to sit on this giant popcorn machine so we could buy it. So I sat on it, and this one crazy guy – I don’t know what was up with him – came up to me and was like, ‘I need that popcorn machine.’ I was like, ‘No. It’s mine.’ So while I was sitting on it he pulled it out from under me. I called my dad over and he got really mad at the guy for pulling it out from under me because I hit my butt and then I broke my tailbone. That’s why in seventh grade I was out of PE for six months – because I broke my tailbone.” – Janvi Thakkar, sophomore

“I was at Katy Mills in 2013 with my family at around 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving when a guy ran past us holding a black duffel bag. There were two security guards chasing him. He was finally stopped when a worker from one of the stores stepped out to block his path. The security guards jumped on him. Later, the police came and we saw him being escorted out in handcuffs. He had stolen demo phones from the Verizon kiosk. I think he thought he could get away with it because there were enough people to distract the Verizon workers from noticing he had taken them.” – Richard Keschinger, freshman

“It was Black Friday 2015. I was getting an iPad at Target at 7:00 p.m., and I had to be at a birthday dinner at 7:30 p.m. It turns out there was a four hour wait for the iPads and we couldn’t find anyone to wait for us in line, so we had to wait four hours. We ended up leaving at 11:30 p.m. and we missed the entire dinner. The iPad was a gift for the birthday dinner I missed.” – Megan Botnick, sophomore

“I was shopping after Thanksgiving dinner in 2014 and my mom and I decided to see what was on sale at Ulta. We walked in and everything was trashed. Almost all of the displays were knocked over and there were cans of hairspray all over the floor. There was even bottles of spilled foundation with those little ‘Caution: Wet Floor’ signs around them. A little kid was running around and he slipped and fell into one of the foundation puddles. He scraped his knee and got foundation all over his fancy Thanksgiving clothes.” – Yara Alkush, junior

“During Black Friday, in 2012, at about 7 in the morning, me and my family went to Wal-Mart. We were in line and two men started fighting over an iPhone. Then one man pulled out a can of pepper spray, and hit the other guy right in the face with it and the other guy was on the ground for about 30 minutes until the police arrived and arrested both of them. Since then, we never went Black Friday shopping ever again.” – Ethan Guy, sophomore

“My freshman year, I went Black Friday shopping with my friends. We were at Target and it was, like, 11 at night. We were like ‘Oh, yeah, we’re going to go get our friend this camera.’ It was all she wanted for Christmas, and we were all going to chip in and get her this camera. My friends said, ‘Ok, Kylie, you’re smallest one of us, why don’t you go get this camera.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, ok, sure.’ The section for the cameras was roped off. I was waiting and I had a ticket, meaning I would get one, but when they opened the section everyone just [ran]. I’m a really tiny person, and I [fell] down after a lady elbowed me. I finally get the camera and this guy comes up to me and says, ‘I need that.’ I say no, but he literally [grabbed] it out of my hands and swung his cart around to hit me. It hurt, but luckily I found one on the floor that someone dropped. We got the camera, but I was badly bruised and had a sprained ankle, so… fun times.” – Kylie Wakulat, senior

“In 2010, I went to Memorial City Mall. I wanted to buy a new phone. All of a sudden as I was getting my phone. A bomb threat came over the loudspeaker and everyone began frantically running around. All of the stores got shut down. We all rushed out of the mall to our cars. Everyone was trying to get out of the parking lot and onto the highway. There was a big traffic jam and it was a huge mess.”  – Neha Bhat, junior

“Last year, in the afternoon on Black Friday, me and my mom went to the Galleria – we were at Nordstrom. We wanted to get the last perfume they had at the counter and this lady ran up and pushed both of us over. My mom actually ended up fracturing her wrist and I sprained my ankle pretty badly. The lady ended up getting the last perfume, but the lady at the counter saw what happened and was able to get my mom a new one from the back of

the store. So, that was a happy ending to my horror story.” – Maryam Zaidi, sophomore

“It was 2015, we were at Costco. My family and I were lined up to get one of those curved LED TVs. There was a huge line going around the section where the TVs were. A couple of the employees were trying to move a big one that someone had just bought when they knocked it over and the screen shattered. A few people cut their hands and feet on the broken glass and one person got hit in the head by the falling TV. They had to call an ambulance.”  – Amy Ouyang, senior