Black Friday, Mr. Wrong

Am I the only one who rejects the whole idea of Black Friday? Am I alone in thinking that it must have been concocted by the same folks who brought us mortgages with optional repayment? No, I think that there are plenty of you who feel the same way.


Have you ever found yourself falling for Ms/Mr Wrong, but you couldn't help yourself? You knew it was going to turn out all wrong for you in the end, but you do it anyway. Black Friday is Mr/Ms Big Wrongeddy-Wrong!

How has it come to this? How could just plain normally-warped people become so totally demented that they would rise at 4 a.m. and drive fifty miles to buy furniture made from genuine 100%  room-freshener? Could it possibly be because every online and analog media outlet in the land has been working us into a frenzy not seen since Soap on a Rope or the Pet Rock?

Have we seriously asked ourselves how Black Friday got here? We awoke one morning still feeling full from a Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe cousin Jack was still asleep on the couch. We gazed out the window on a boss-free Friday only to find Black Friday hanging in the sky like one of those huge Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons in the form of a turkey vulture.  "This is not my holiday!" David Byrne and his Talking Heads might have sung, and we should nod our heads in agreement, Pilgrims.

Suddenly, wherever you turn: TV, the car radio, a computer and phone some nitwit is ranting about bargains all over town. Black Friday. Does that sound like a day on which something really good is going to happen? 
Black Friday. How could so many have fallen for this insanity so fast? Please. It's not too late to call it off.

Thanksgiving  is still the nearly perfect holiday. We don't need to get in a frenzy about buying a book for our aunt that she'd never read or having to return yet another tie or pashmina that she gave us. We don't feel compelled to bring trees into the house or hang lights outside. We gather together to share a meal and accomplish the nearly impossible tasks of being cordial to questionable relatives and making a turkey taste delicious. 


More importantly, we focus on being grateful for what we have, instead of what we do not, and acknowledge a power higher than our ourselves. Why mess it up by going crazy the very next day?

Please, let's just wake up after Thanksgiving and give thanks that it's Good Old Friday, Mr/Ms Right, the way it was meant to be. 


Ed Note: Some loyal fans may notice that this is an edited version of a piece we produced last November. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Just Plain Friday. 
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