Last Christmas, K-Mart (or was it Wal-Mart?) announced it would be open for 82 hours straight with all sorts of bargains. On the morning the selling marathon began, over one hundred people were lined up waiting to get into the store. Some of them had been there for two or three hours.

The crowds watched in disbelief as a man walked past the entire crowd, and began to squeeze himself in at the head of the line. As if with a single motion, the crowd moved him back to the end of the line. The man tried again, and this time was moved a little more roughly to the rear. When he tried a third time, people started yelling and screaming and pushing him.

As he stood at the end of the line, he man said, "I'm going to try once more, and if you do that to me again, I'm not going to open the store."…