Sunday, November 27, 2011

Why can't people leave people alone, part the nth

I guess this is as good a place as any for my rant about how Black Friday is emblematic of everything wrong with American culture these days. It isn't enough now that stores have to open at 5:00 AM... now they start at midnight, or even the night of Thanksgiving. So people who work retail have to cut their family holiday short to accommodate our collective lust for competition to buy cheap crap. Yeah yeah, we're grateful, we gorged ourselves to prove it, now get the fuck out of our way or suffer the consequences. Pepper spray is the new elbow to the ribs.

I know that everyone who shops the day after Thanksgiving doesn't behave this way, and I guess I should be thankful that unlike last year, nobody was trampled to death. Still, the whole concept disgusts me. Pffft.

I have some shopping to do today myself, hopefully while Black Friday lovers are still sleeping it off. Not Christmas shopping, which I plan to do only very locally or online this year -- just for groceries. Yet, even with Thanksgiving still visible in the rearview mirror, I can expect to encounter the bells, the bells, the relentless bells.

So I printed out my little notes for the red kettles, politely explaining that my donations go elsewhere while the Salvation Army maintains its position that homosexual people should not only not be allowed to marry, but should be celibate

Hopefully I won't forget which pocket holds which paper.  Both my purposes will be amusingly defeated if the red kettle gets my shopping list, leaving me with a scrap of cheerfully expressed social activism to guide me through the grocery store.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you SO much for letting me know about the Salvation Army. I plan to print out my own little notes now.

    I honestly DID NOT know this! Holy shit and it is RIGHT THERE in front of me. Ugh.

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  2. No problem.

    I don't want to be rude to the nice folks ringing the bells... but I want their overlords to know what's up.

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  3. Did not know about the SA. And speaking of homosexuals---you people in Massachusetts should be ashamed to have foisted Barney Frank on the world, yeah, yeah I know he came from NJ, but he really was yours for the last 32 years.

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