…and I haven’t bought any of the cheap plastic shit that stores squat and expel into the gaping mouths of well trained consumers nationwide. I did not go to the mall. Nobody cut me off in traffic. I did not see advertisements or read the fine print that explained that the good deal was not as good as I thought. Nobody dinged my car in the parking lot. No kids threw tantrums in my vicinity. I did not use a credit card. I did not eat shitty fast food. I did not pay sales tax. I’m an economic black hole and proud of it!
Now for a series of images to illustrate my attitude about Black Friday:
Photo 1: See this line? Don't be in it.
Photo 2: See this line. Don't be in it.
Photo 3: See this line. Don't be in it.
Of course the road from anxious flakes desperately queuing up in the pre-dawn snow of 2010 to buy a new iDevice to a soup kitchen in 1930 is a long and winding one. But I heartily recommend a policy of never ever standing in line to buy any physical object. In theory, if the object is priced so low that rational people stand in line at dawn to get it…then the price is irrational and likely an indication that your estimate of the object’s value is…horseshit. Conversely if the price is rational you can buy it in a reasonable time frame and standing around like groupie trying to score free concert tickets is irrational. There are exceptions of course; if you need more ammo after the zombie horde has somehow destroyed your stash/civilization/and your reloading press…well ok maybe prices could get elastic. Beyond that, if you’re waiting in line for a consumer good you’re either in Russia circa 1973 or a deluded yahoo. Don’t go quietly into that dark night!
The timing also galls me. What hideous monsters would encourage a materialistic orgy so near to the sacred Thanksgiving holiday? My family is safe and healthy, the larder is sufficiently stocked, the snow is pretty outside and it’s staying outside because our house is sufficiently (if barely) sound, the chickadees are chirpy as ever, and two playful mousers in training kittens are chewing happily on my shoelaces. This is what we give thanks for. The newest iCrap at Best Buy is unimaginably trivial.
Any man forced to venture to a mall today gets my full sympathies based on the assumption that it was simultaneously involuntary and painful. (Like passing a gall stone.) As for any man who went to the mall on Black Friday because they wanted to…sorry but you’re not a man. Just sayin’.
And because I didn’t say it yesterday…Happy Thanksgiving to all of us. We have much to be thankful for and shouldn’t let slip the opportunity to reflect on the transitory nature of fortune and celebrate the blessings which have come our way.