You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Black Friday is crazy.
It’s an alarm clock on a Sunday morning.
It’s a poke in the eye, intrusive like elephant poop on your living room floor.
I hate Black Friday.
I hate it because America is tricked, fooled, cajoled into waking up at the crack of dawn to spend money they don’t have on products they can live without.
Door busters. Free this. Half Off That! Sales till Mid Night!
Get up. Run. When they’re gone, they’re gone.
Huh?
It’s a national obsession of fear, avarice and confusion.
OMG
Stay in bed. Let the trailer trash and red neck women fight and pull hair for the last hair dryer.
Be like me. Wake to the song birds of Friday morning. Smile, stretch and then pull the comforter up to your chin and close your tired eyes. Go back to sleep and dream of an insouciant candy land store where flat screens jump into your cart with alacrity like Cuban refugees claiming political asylum.
Put a bow on that Castro!
Here’s what I know.
The same TV you think will only be on sale for an hour, will be on sale tomorrow and the next day.
There are a billion Chinese kids slaving away in an Asian factory some place making sure you will always be able to watch Dr. Phil in HD.
Here’s my truth: In mid December that ironing board, that pair of boots, that hair ribbon with the Hello Kitty smile will be available. I promise you on December 24th, you can walk into any store anywhere in the USA and there it will be winking at you with a big bow.
Forsake Black Friday. Wait 3 weeks. Push the calendar to the limit. Go into Macy’s on December 24th around 6 pm. That’s when the bargains are jumping off the shelves like a going out of business sale at the downtown mattress factory.
Go into Wal Mart the night before Christmas; I guarantee you’ll find sales clerks on their knees, drinking sacramental wine, praying to a fiscal God that knows no peace. Be careful as you approach. Like hungry jackals, these sales associates will smell your money, smell your need. They are salivating, hiding below the big signs that say 80% off.
They will practically pay you to take these sweat shop goods off the alter of greed.
Black Friday compared to The Night before Christmas is a non event. It’s like lighting a candle in the after glow of a nuclear explosion. Can you even see it?
Do me a favor. Relax America.
Black Friday is a national farce.
It’s group hypnotism fueled by corporate America and disseminated by news operations with nothing else to cover.
If there was a major news event on Friday, you wouldn’t see one second of people acting like animals to get inside a store.
Black Friday.
It’s a flawed concept, built upon a lie, perpetuated by a primitive human need.
I mean how much am I am saving exactly?
And what is my time worth? What is my REM cycle worth? What is my patience being tested worth?
Is the one flat screen on sale at Target for 99 dollars worth rushing the doors like the running of the bulls? Is it worth checking an old woman into the glass like I’m a New York Ranger on the Power Play?
And after that one flat screen is gone, snatched up by the fat guy with no teeth and suspenders, what then?
Is that it? Are there no more flat screens on the planet I can afford?
It’s a scam. It’s a sham. It’s a farce of national proportions.
Every TV commercial tells me that I need to be in the store at 4am or else.
Or else what?
Or else I might get to sleep? I might get to enjoy the holiday? I won’t be angry that I paid too much for something I really didn’t want, but I bought anyway, because I was up at 4am so what else was I suppose to do?
K-Mart and Macy’s and Target. Screw em!
They are blowing up the airwaves with warnings of mass shopping hysteria so ferocious, so pernicious, so forcefully, you’d think that we were being invaded by North Korea.
Attention citizens digesting you dinner! We interrupt this program to inform you that America has been attacked by WalMart.
Hold on..
This just in: ToysRUs is having an After Thanksgiving Day sale so amazing, so shocking, so incredible, if you don’t take part, you will be considered the stupidest person on Earth.
And get this. The Door Buster extravaganza doesn’t even make you wait till after Thanksgiving. It actually begins at 10pm Thanksgiving night.
Isn’t that great. You can eat Turkey and pumpkin pie and stuffing and gravy and giblets and cranberries and deviled eggs and ham and celery and cupcakes and ginger bread and wash it all down with beer and liquor.
Then while you are close to a cardiac arrest and having trouble breathing, you can button your pants, fasten your coat, and push yourself behind the steering wheel of the car to go stand in line at Toys R Us.
I pray to God that the Rapunzel Let Down Your Hair gift set is still available.
Give me a break, PLEASE.
Save Save Save.
It’s a national hallucination.
Psssst.
Here’s a secret for you. “They will still sell laptops on Saturday. Pass it on.”
I swear to Snow White and the 7 dwarfs that this Black Friday thing is a manufactured day of merchandising tom-foolery.
It was conjured up by 3 Macy’s Managers smoking dope in a back room dreaming of a way to save their jobs.
So here’s my crazy advice. Forget the Black Friday. Don’t cater to the wishes of corporate America. Stay in bed and love the one your with.
Shop on Saturday and Sunday and even Tuesday. Treat Friday like the Sabbath. Tell them God expects you to rest.
Don’t fall prey to the hypnosis hysteria, Shop wisely. Make sure you are awake and not wearing your house coat in the dark.
So be safe K-Mart Shoppers. Don’t shop under the influence of Triptofan and false fiscal prophets.
And that is crazy™