It’s Black Friday, the biggest and most aggressive shopping day of the year. Stores slash prices and determined shoppers wait up all night, push each other, bribe each other, and occasionally trample one another to get their hands on the goods.

This year has seen an increase in the number of shoppers from the broke years after 2008, and the L.A. Times was kind enough to interview some of the consumer warriors swarming the local malls.

Best Quotes

• “It’s cold, cold, cold, frustrating and stressful standing for five hours but you just do it. My mother-in-law put me in this spot.” – Monica Ferreira, 27, hoping for a $600 washer-dryer from Sears
• “We are in it to win it. Go hard or go home.” – Ilene Agan, 27, veteran Black Friday Shopper at Toys R Us
• “This is professional shopping for a lot of these customers, and they know exactly what they want. They plan these things, they have their routes and they make a beeline.” – Mike Boylson, Chief Marketing Officer, JCPenney
• “Maybe I’m sacrificing too much for this TV.” – Vanessa Barrera, 20, Sears

Tags: black friday, consumerism, holidays, shopping