Wal-Mart registers processed 5,000 items per second Thanksgiving night

That’s a lot of towels.

Wal-Mart officials this morning announced that since 8 p.m. Thursday, the discount retailer’s U.S. stores had sold 1.8 million towels, 1.3 million televisions and 1.3 million dolls.

Y'know, give or take a few.

Between 8 p.m. and midnight, the Bentonville, Ark., retailer said it processed almost 10 million register transactions and almost 5,000 items per second.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union and Wal-Mart disagreed on the extent of protests taking place at the company’s stores over the holiday, with the retailer saying few workers participated and the union claiming success in several markets.