Black Friday was always a Festival for Mammon, a bastion of commercialization and evidence of the crassness and materialism of the American people. The rush when they open the doors at Best Buy was something amazing to see, in those days when I was on dawn bargain patrol. We used to try to get a couple of hours of sleep then head over to the local Best Buy about or so in the morning to get in line for the 6 AM opening melee. Then the opening was moved to 5 AM and we had to pretty much spend the night outside the store.
Something changed for me when they they moved the opening up to midnight and bargain hunters had to devote all of Thanksgiving Day to the search for $197 laptops and $249 50″ TVs. Now, most of the stores are opening at 6 PM on Thanksgiving Day. My son, who is the assistant manager at an FYE in the local mall, will spend a good bit of Turkey Day selling records instead of giving thanks.
It is disgusting.
And there is ONE THING you can do about it. Only one. Signing a petition isn’t going to do any good. Blogging likely isn’t going to do any good either. Walmart and Best Buy and the local mall and all these other Mammon-worshiping corporations don’t care about any of that. They care about one thing – the money they make. So there is only one thing we can do.
DON’T SHOP!
Stay home. Don’t go. Stay home and have a turkey sandwich. Watch some football. Hang with the family. But don’t participate in the Black Friday/Thursday madness. If you are upset about the encroachment of Black Friday onto Thanksgiving Thursday, just say no!
No matter how much you complain, if you shop on Thursday your actions will speak louder than your words.
I’m not much for petitions and online campaigns. But I intend to show my disgust for “Black Thursday” by staying home.
