Forget lecherous pilgrims and diseased blankets; Thanksgiving is effing great. The glorious third Thursday of November: a day spent in starvation, enjoying quality time with family, and gorging oneself, respectively. For me, this tried-and-true routine is followed by a long night and morning of sleep, then by a nice full Friday of lolling in my bathrobe and watching America’s Next Top Model reruns.

But this year, my world has gone topsy-turvy. On Friday the 23rd, I am expected to wake up at an ungodly four-thirty in the morning and board a plane to Florida. Do you realize what is being required of me? I have to climb stairs, drag a suitcase around, attempt to fasten a seatbelt over my newfound turkey gut, and proceed to entertain myself for upwards of six and a half hours without the aid of individual television screens, because Seattle to Tampa is not an intercontinental flight. All because my own cousin was inconsiderate enough to plan her wedding over Thanksgiving weekend.

When my indignation over this had subsided slightly, I got to thinking about that strange species of people who wake up at an ungodly hour each and every Friday after Thanksgiving. They rub the bloated stupor from their eyes, squeeze into their elastic-waisted fatpants, and stumble out into the cold, pre-dawn stillness. These are the people who hear that the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year, and immediately — like so many Pavlov’s dogs — feel compelled to plan a shopping excursion. Early in the morning, they crowd in thousands under the eaves of Kmart and Macy’s, armed with lawn chairs and thermoses of coffee, and sometimes those silly rainbow umbrella hats. The really hardcore arrive at midnight to sleep off Thanksgiving dinner on the pavement in the rain, then at opening proceed to tear the store’s door off its hinges, a la overzealous shoppers at a North Dakota Target last year.

And so begins Black Friday.

The secrets of this superlative shopping day are shrouded in a dark fog of pain, of anguish, and of deepest desperation. Next Friday, as you venture out into the vast unknown, you will need to choose your weapons carefully. It’s probably true that a crowbar or brass knuckles or possibly a lasso would be useful in discouraging other customers from snapping up that Limited Edition Furby you so covet. However, I think I am right in saying that you are better armed with knowledge that with any lethal weapon. Here are your Black Friday commandments, compiled from my many, many minutes of research on the World Wide Web:

• Everybody get there before everybody else. Some stores have been known to hand out numbers for a limited product, long before opening. One practical and innovative idea: set up Thanksgiving dinner right there on the sidewalk. Invite your whole family, select a cleanish patch of pavement, and carve up the turkey; then sleep under the stars. You’ll get closer to nature, and you won’t miss a thing!

• Push, don’t pull or vice versa. The key thing here is to read the little sign on the door, so you don’t end up like the eager fellow in Tulare, California who pulled the handle right off a door that should have been pushed, thus denying entry to several displeased potential customers.

• Don’t cut. It didn’t work when you wanted to be line leader in Ms. Tisdale’s class, and it won’t work now. It could very well be unnecessarily painful and embarrassing, as it was for three women at a Los Angeles Toys “R” Us a few Novembers ago, when one woman attempted to cut in line and was promptly throttled by two other women — all under the watchful lens of a video camera. Said incident was named number three on ESPN’s “Top Ten Plays” of the weekend. This reminds me:

• Bring a camera. You never know.

• Don’t use Black Friday as a scapegoat. It’s tempting, and can work for quite a while, but suing Wal-Mart for seizures you may or may not have while wrestling middle-aged women for a $29.87 DVD player is a very bad thing to do. Actually, go for it; I don’t care either way. If Patricia van Lester, 41, of Orange City, Florida, is a sufficient sample, you can pull this off sixteen times before you get caught.

• Submit to bribery. Don’t complain when a Kohl’s employee offers free food to keep waiting customers in check, like George of Montgomery County, Maryland, did, on a site that seems to be devoted to the mundane whines of traumatized Black Friday shoppers. If you are given coffee and donuts in exchange for peace and quiet, use that maple bar effectively to muffle your screams.

• Be nice to employees. You’re stressed, you’re tired, and you look awful, but really, it isn’t “Hi I’m Ricardo”’s fault that Circuit City has sold out of $400 laptops, of which they had sixteen total. There is no need to berate; Ricardo is squandering away valuable time that could very well be spent with his family and friends, to instead stand helplessly under fluorescent lights in the uncomfortable heat of your accusing glare. He has to be there; you don’t. Smile!

• Keep your head down, and use your elbows. Black Friday is Black Friday, and you aren’t going to get anywhere if you’re not aggressive. Try to avoid eye contact, and subsequently conflict as much as possible. But if someone’s provoking you, don’t be afraid to open a can of whoop-ass and prove your rightful ownership of that Naruto Ninja Rock.

I know that it can be intimidating to set out this cold, cold morning; you can feel scared, and lost, and alone. Well, I don’t know that actually; I’ve probably never set foot outside my house the day after Thanksgiving. But follow my tips to a T, and rule your post-Thanksgiving shopping domain. Black Friday is by no means for the faint of heart, and that’s how I know you’ll be fine.

Brave soldiers: I salute you. Good luck out there.

And buy me something nice.