Millions of Americans across the country spent Friday waiting in lines to find deals for Holiday gifts. Some even spent part of their Thanksgiving evening getting a head start at the malls and shopping centers.

I wasn’t one of them. Neither was my wife, Rita.

It seems Black Friday has become ingrained in our culture now, with shppers expecting bargains and retailers hoping to make millions in sales that day to bring their bottom line “in the black.”

But Rita and I have found it just isn’t worth the hassle to deal with that deluge of eager, anxious and sometimes angry shoppers pushing and shoving to save a few dollars.

A few years back we decided to try shopping on Black Friday in one of the “big box” stores. We thought there might be a chance we could find a few gifts at sale prices for Rita’s grandkids. We didn’t have any particular items in mind, but there were quite a few toys and games in the store.

Earlier that week we saw how the store was preparing for the big day. There were stacks of shrink-wrapped bins in the aisles filled with all kinds of things: toys, appliances, clothing, tools and electronics. Areas were roped off using yellow plastic tape so no one could take any of the sale items and try to buy them before Friday.

On that Black Friday we decided to get there early before everything was sold.

Everyone else had the same idea. By 7 a.m. the parking lot was full. More drivers were circling the lot, looking for parking spaces - to no avail.

Long lines of people stood outside the entrance to the store, waiting in the cold for a store employee to wave in a few more shoppers.

We stood in line for what seemed like an hour before we finally got inside the store.

It was a madhouse.

People were pushing each other and digging through the bins. Some were grabbing four or five of the same item, filling their shopping carts with whatever they could fit. There were all kinds of socks, gloves, scarves, hats and coats strewn on the floor, being trampled by shoppers.

There were already long check-out lines even before we had the chance to search through the aisles for an appropriate gift. People on those lines were yelling at the store employees to move faster.

By the time we found a few gifts, we saw the check-out lines had grown even longer. Shoppers were yelling at each other for cutting to the front of the lines.

Rita and I looked at each other and came to the same conclusion: time to go. We left our shopping cart where we stood and went home.

Never again!