November 25, 2011

So today is Black Friday. I think it’s called Black Friday because this is the day that the retailers fall back into the black on their All Important Ledger. Apparently they have been running in the red for the entire year up until today when they magically sell enough stuff to produce enough profit to fall back into the black. This pleases the Lord.

You can tell economic times are tough because the retailers are having to work extra hard at getting back into the black this year. Times are so tough for them that they decided to make Black Friday last more than 24 hours by starting up on Thursday night. That’s right, forget the time gathered around the post-dinner table engaging in discussion or a board game with the family, we are now suppose to bundle up and get ourselves to the Wal*mart before it’s Friday so we can get a head start on the deals that are arriving before Friday for Black Friday. Move. That. Money. Buy. That. Stuff.

I’m already entertaining requests from my fans as to what I want for Christmas. I haven’t really thought about it a great deal, though I think I may have suggested a few ideas to Earl over the past week. There is a rumor that I want an iPad2 and possibly an iPhone 4S, but there is a part of me that wants to go without getting a big ticket technology item for Christmas, just to say that I did it. Besides, everything I have works fine. My iPhone is able to distract me from real life without a problem and I can blog anywhere my heart desires with my first generation iPad. Ironically, I am using my MacBook Pro to blog during my lunch hour today, but that’s only because I left the bluetooth keyboard in the Jeep and that’s in getting serviced, so I’m driving the Durango and I wanted to be able to type on an actual keyboard instead of just a picture of one. I find it very hard to write blog entries on my iPad. I don’t think it would be an easier on my iPad2 since the pictures of the keyboard are identical. Damn me for learning to do something other than hunt and peck. What was I thinking?

When Earl and I dropped the Jeep off at the early-bird station at the dealership last night, we took the opportunity to swing through the Big Box Mecca to see what sort of lines were forming at the Big Box Stores. There was an encampment at Best Buy that went the entire length of that side of the shopping center. The line formed at the front entrance to Best Buy, at the end of the building, and snaked along the entire plaza beyond PetSmart, Salon Aida, some sort of dental clinic, a double-wide TJ Maxx and Michaels’. People were bundled up in their eskimo gear and sitting on lawn chairs. All to save $100 off one of two laptops (because there’s never more than that in stock) that’s probably going crap out and be so bogged down with “value added software” that you’ll want to chuck the thing out the window in a month anyway. The Wal*mart had setup some corrals out front but there wasn’t very many people to be seen.

This is what our Thanksgiving has come to, nothing more than a precursor to the more important Black Friday. It’s kind of sad.

I heard on the news this morning that one of the other Wal*mart Supercenters in the area (we have four within a 15 mile radius) had to summon the cops because of shoppers fighting over cell phones. There’s nothing that shares that Christian sentiment of “Merry Christmas” better than a good kick in the teeth.

Back to the gift idea requests I have been getting. I know that people want to give me a gift in the name of sharing a delight and the spirit of the season and that is very much appreciated. You know what I really want? A donation to the Ali Forney Center in New York. If you feel the need to give me something, give me a card with some nice words and a bottle of after shave or something. Don’t dazzle, just share.

If more people did that, I bet our hearts, instead of our wallets, would soar on Black Friday.