Be afraid, be very afraid. This year’s upcoming Black Friday is going to get a jumpstart, as mall operators are going to encourage their stores to open at the stroke of midnight in order to further feed the shopping frenzy.

Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst with NPD Group, a market research firm, thinks retailers are being smart by wanting to get consumers into their stores at midnight.

“No doubt, it’s a much better play to have consumers wandering in your store that early instead of waiting outside for a few hours until the store opens at 5 a.m. so that they’re first to grab the hot sales,” Cohen said. “The advantage of having people in your store is that you don’t lose those two to three hours of sales.”

That’s right: Time a’wasting in pre-dawn loitering can be better harnessed at the card-swipe machine! And they can earn points toward their post-holiday Shopaholics Anonymous sessions.

Working against this consumerist overdose is that Turkey Day-induced tryptophan nap. But I guess that’s what those Black Friday wakeup phonecalls are for.