It happens every year like clock-work. The pleasant Friday after Thanksgiving gets turned into a commercial “holiday” as stores try to engineer a great rush on their front doors for the TV cameras.

A few high profile loss leaders for sale, lots of crowds, and free publicity.

Except that stores generally suck at crowd control, unless they are owned by Apple. And having engineered this wretched experience, some stores get more than they wished for as too-big-to-handle crowds show up.

I’ve written about this before, when a worker was killed in a Wal-Mart stampede.

The race by retailers to pull people away from their families with this nonsense has now extended to some stores forcing employees to forego the actual Thanksgiving holiday and come in and open the stores on that day. It’s a Thanksgiving celebration with no Thanksgiving.

My best hope is that, come next week, I get to say “I was wrong” with regard to the injuries, instead of “I told you so.” Sometimes I like being wrong.

Updated: Walmart chaos.