It's Black Friday, the day when all the crazy people go wait in line in the freezing cold to buy shit they don't need for people they don't like at prices that will be lower in about 2 weeks to be able to rub it in our noses that they're done shopping for the holidays.To me it's the day when leaving the house would be a certain sign of mental illness.
I won't even go to the grocery store, the liquor store, or the local pharmacy today if I can avoid it, and I need all kinds of shit, like printer ink and pomegranate juice and mascara. But I will soldier on by not printing anything from my downstairs computer, not drinking anything healthy (okay, not making sangria, let's be serious here), and toughing out the last of the eye make-up until it gets too caked over to apply anymore. These are my sacrifices to fellow Black Friday shoppers -- You can take the parking spaces that I would hypothetically be inhabiting had I decided not so hypothetically to actually drive into the shopping mayhem.
I think it's wonderful that people want to participate in full-contact competitive shopping. Personally I think it should be added to the Olympics. But I also think you're nuts, totally and completely like off your rocking chair and out into the meadows of insanity type of nuts. And now that Black Friday has morphed into Slightly Grayish Thursday, I'm not sure what sacred honor awaits the very fate of Thanksgiving.
To all you lunatics who are reading this blog via your cell phone while waiting in line for a parking space at the mall, bless you for contributing to the economy. In the meantime, while you're swearing about finding a place to park your vehicle, I'll be parking my ass in front of the television to watch sports, or at the computer to start my paper for grad school, or around the table eating leftovers and sipping something with a high alcohol content. I may not be getting my holiday shopping done, but I'm not going to need sutures to close any errant shopping-induced head wounds, either.
Go forth and be cautious. I'll see you all on Saturday. You'll be able to recognize me when you see me -- I'm the one without the fully-loaded shopping bags.
