Black Friday is coming up, and it’s never too early to start preparing yourself for the onslaught that is sure to happen.

You survived Thanksgiving, and watched the Detroit Lions lose once again in their annual Thanksgiving Day game, but now it’s time to survive Black Friday. 

It’s basically like “The Purge,” but more festive. And the same amount of violence. 

Fortunately, The Oakland Post has some great tips to get you through Black Friday without landing yourself behind bars or sacrificing your soul to Cthulhu to get your hands on that 70-inch, 8K flatscreen TV at a merely discounted price of 25% off. Take it or leave it, losers. 

Start early

You want to be one of the first people in the store, so your best bet is to arrive earlier than everyone else. Rather than waking up at 2 a.m., start camping outside the store by tomorrow. Better yet, if it’s a sporting goods outlet, camp inside their store in one of their many tent displays. You have no life anyway, and you’re not doing that 15-page paper due in two days, so pack up your belongings and go camping. 

The switcheroo

You didn’t go camping and now you’re not sure what to do. Here’s your plan of attack — go in the store, make your way to the back, find the employee break room and put on an employee’s uniform. Go back to the main floor of the store and start “shopping.” Take your hot new items to an exit located by the back, pretend you’re taking out the trash and then sprint to your car to get away.

Bonus points if you called an Uber to pick you up from the back. It’s a classic take on the Trojan Horse strategy.  

Who’s that celebrity?

Do you have a friend that remotely resembles a celebrity? Great! Get a group of your friends, rent a luxury car — like a Rolls Royce Phantom — and drive to the store. Be sure you drive by the crowd of people so they notice and get distracted.

You and your other friends will pretend to be bodyguards and you guys will escort your “celebrity” friend past the horde of people and swiftly walk into the store. Once inside, lock the doors and have yourself a Tom Cruise moment from “Risky Business” — shop your heart out in just your shirt and underwear while dancing to “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll.” 

The Infinity Gauntlet 

This one is a bit of a cosmic doozy. You’ll have to first get your hands on a spaceship, primarily one that can go faster than the speed of light, so you can travel across the universe in a short period of time. After that, all that’s left to do is collect the six infinity stones, get the infinity gauntlet and snap everyone out of existence. Should be a fun trip. 

Avoid Kidz Bop Karen

Do you really want to be told to “calm down” a bunch of times while being intensely stared at? Wherever you decide to shop, there will always be a Karen wanting to speak to the store manager and hold up the line that stretches out and around the store building. You don’t want to come between Karen and the store manager — NEVER! 

On the other hand, if your own mom is a Karen, you might as well go shopping with her and take advantage of that. You will probably get a bigger discount or just get some sort of in-store credit.  

Move to the North Pole

Why settle for discounts when you can go work for Santa at his little workshop and get free toys and enjoy all the Christmas cheer around you? Your best choice is to move to the North Pole and work for Santa. Work benefits are probably better at the North Pole anyway, including healthcare — Santa has to keep his workers healthy in that bitter cold. #Santa2020.

Freeze yourself like Walt Disney

If you really want to survive Black Friday, you might as well skip it. One of the ways you can do that is by cryogenically freezing yourself to conserve your body the way Walt Disney did.

One of the benefits is you get to make the decision when you want to wake up from your “sleeping state.” Whether it’s the next day, or the day after the 2020 election, or you might as well go the “Futurama” route and wake up in a thousand years. In the end, it’s your call. Be aware though, if you “Futurama” yourself, you might wake up in a world where A.I. has taken over the human race. Or maybe it’s apes. “Planet of the Apes.”