Buy Nothing Day (Black Friday)

I don't really care all that much about Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day. My family has cut way back on gift giving. The few close friends who will get yule-tide gifts are likely to receive something I saw earlier in the year and thought, "hey, that'd be perfect for So'n'so," and snatched up while the thought was still clear in my head. At any rate, none of the things on mega-sale today at the giant retailers are things I'd be likely to buy; so the deep one-day Black Friday discounts aren't so useful for me. I rate it two mehs.

I'm equally aloof to Buy Nothing Day. Those who observe it are not people who would line up in the black of dawn to stock up on GameBoy cassettes at WalMart in the first place. But even if they were, BND doesn't reduce consumption so much as defer it to another day. As for those who do line up at O'dark Hundred, I doubt they've ever heard of Buy Nothing Day. For some of them, I'm guessing the incentive discounts are making a difference in these leaner times.

That leaves me with an empty symbol, an end sought to be avoided in the first place. 15 mehs.

Granted, the frenzy is unsettling, and reckless spending in the midst of a serious credit crisis is hard to watch. But I'm not convinced the stampeding masses are such mindless sheep led by shiny ads on TeeVee. Yes, I've seen glazed eyes staring out from the face of a woman snatching weird stuff no one could possibly want. But I wonder, is she mindlessly shopping or is she frantically trying to come up with some solution to impossible expectations?

This year I'm gonna bust a new move and point a finger at the professionals. First evil eye goes to the buyer ordering plastic trees for a major drugstore chain. She should be reprimanded. A plastic, purple, pre-lit spruce with pink snow symbolizes NOTHING. Not Yule, not Nature, Not Christmas. There is a certain level beyond which shoddy workmanship and poor materials simply cannot be combined to create a thing of any value. That monstrosity is not decorative, it's just trash with a price tag on it. You'll be remaindering them for months.

Next up, YOU, Mr. Vice President of Workplace Operations, you ought to be ashamed. You heave your lardy ass out of the office at 2pm on Wednesday and don't come back until the following Monday. So why on G-d's green earth do you think it's a good idea to be open from 7am to 9pm on THANKSGIVING DAY??? I'm looking squarely at you KMart; forcing your lowest echelon workers to choose between job and family is just crass.

Lastly, I have words for you, oh advertising/marketing gurus. We all know about the bonus the Director of North American sales for XCorp gets for maximizing every last squeezable cent from the profit margin during the Mid-November to January 3rd cavalcade of indulgences. Last year it was the size of Peru's national debt.

So maybe you could actually do your damn jobs and come up with some clever, innovative advertising campaigns that don't rely on blinky lights, rehashing old XMas teevee specials, or the encouragement to "get a little something for yourself" while you're shopping for others. Also, that year you used It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for back-to-school? That was brilliant. Now do something new and non-psychosis inducing and earn your frigging paycheck.