The Blackest Day of the Year

Well folks, it's almost that time again. When people put the turkey in the fridge and get ready to do the marathon of spending. Yep, Black Friday is upon us. 10 days til the consumerism smacks us right in the face with its "Best Deals of the Season" and "Lowest Prices Since the Nixon Administration". (Okay, I exaggerated that last one but you get my point.) All the retailers strive to out do the others with fantastic prices and gobs of people trampling each other to get them. (Sadly, that's not even an exaggeration anymore after the Wal-mart stampede a few years ago.)

The thing is, I hate shopping on a good day. Black Friday just takes everything that I hate (massive amounts of shoppers, crowded aisles, and slow customer service) and jams it into one handy package. The problem is, I like the deals they roll out to entice us poor schmucks into shopping at their stores. (Face it, who doesn't love a good deal?) Sometimes I don't even need to be shopping, I just want to see what sales they're having so I can say to myself, "Wow, that's a really good price." Only to pay $20 more 2 weeks later when the crowds aren't claustrophobic anymore and I can handle being in the store.

And being America, we HAVE to hype something 3 months before the actual occasion arrives. Remember when Black Friday was the official start of the Christmas season? I was in a store a few days before Halloween and they were already playing Christmas carols. (Tell me those employees won't be stark raving mad by December 25th!) Halloween isn't even over yet not to mention they're breezing right over one of my personal faves, Thanksgiving, to skip straight to Christmas.

Just a quick digression into a personal rant: I'm pretty ticked now that they aren't even giving T-day its due because all the hype is on the day after. A perfectly nice, plump 24 pound turkey died just to make my family gluttonously happy and dammit, we're going to enjoy every single gravy soaked second!

They do the same thing to Black Friday now too. It used to be all the stores opened at the ass crack of dawn and people lined up around 2 in the morning, freezing their asses off for a $200 flat screen. Now stores are opening on Thanksgiving Day itself, hurrying people through their pumpkin pie so that they can gorge on Christmas spending for their families. Then the whole "Cyber Monday" came into play for the hermits like me who can't stand braving weather, traffic, or crowds but still love a good deal. I have found that some of the online deals are way better than trying to shop in actual stores. (Plus, it comes right to my door where I open the box, wrap it up, and stick it under my tree. How is this not a win win situation?) Yet even this has gotten out of hand as my email inbox fills up with "Pre-black Friday deals" and "Early Cyber Monday" crap weeks before the events occur.

Just for the fun of it, I'm going to spout some "Black Friday is the anti-Christmas" conspiracy crap to get everyone riled and arguing amongst themselves. Then when they're not looking I'm going to snatch that last $15 blender right from under their noses. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm probably not leaving the comfort of cyber space for my holiday shopping. You can't beat shopping in your pajamas at 9:30 at night while watching the latest crime show and planning your Thanksgiving extravaganza. That's the life!