So sad. Pathetic is probably a better word. After all, it was supposed to be a bumper start to the peak Christmas shopping season which actually left stores looking more like a battlefield as Black Friday frenzy took hold.
Shoppers fought - in some cases with their fists - to get their bargains.
Back home we hear of a woman who started her Christmas shopping early by looting goods donated to a Catholic charity store that gives to the poor. The woman was captured on CCTV taking donated goods from the Hamilton St Vincent de Paul store. Armed with bolt cutters, she took two loads of gear away in a green Jeep Cherokee on which the number plate was visible. The silly thing is that after all her efforts that took around an hour, the society says if she had just asked for help they would have given it.
On the same day three other people also snatched things from the donation point, including items of furniture as well as a jacket.
And was it greed or sheer gullibility when a New Zealand traveller was arrested and accused of attempting to smuggle 1.7kg of methamphetamine into Indonesia?
If the allegations turn out to be true, you'd have to wonder what the man was thinking. The brown-paper packet was concealed in his backpack, officials said.
You would think that after the Schapelle Corby and Bali Nine arrests, among others, no one in their right mind would risk being in possession of more than a packet of cigars when en route through Southeast Asia.
The story goes that this chap had been lured online by the false promise of romance from a woman in Hong Kong, with trafficking of the drugs being the motive.
That part of the world is the last place that one would wish to be caught with any sort of illicit stuff. It is typical in such places for the authorities to parade the trafficker in front of local media along with their smuggled goods.
With the penalties there the toughest on the planet, being found guilty of such a crime would probably mean execution.
Under Indonesian law, for anyone convicted of possession of more than 5g of processed drugs like methamphetamine, a maximum sentence of life imprisonment - or the death penalty - can be imposed.
This guy has been accused of having 85 times that amount, so if he's convicted, future Christmas dinners for him will cease to be and being before a firing squad or on the end of a rope is imminent.
I've no idea what the odds are of successfully slipping through the net when trafficking drugs, but it's a chance that only a fool with nerves of steel would dare to take.
And now we hear of yet another arrest over drugs. This time, a young expat Kiwi and his partner with allegedly 75 (that's right - seventy-five) kilos of methamphetamine.
What will their punishment be if found guilty? Tossed into a pit of crocodiles?
