A Different Kind of Black Friday

ByBenji Battle

Black Friday came and went, and here's what I did not do:

I did not enter a store in the wee hours of the night (morning?) and stand in line with zombies with plastic money and pepper spray in their pockets.

For me, the day after Thanksgiving was truly Black Friday because it was lights out! I went to...and stayed in...my king size bed.

At midnight, I was under covers (with a computer in my lap). After the 3500+ calories I ate, all I wanted to do was sleep.

So by 1 AM, I was out. At 2 AM? Blackness. At 4 AM? The opaque, non-color state of non-consciousness. At 6 AM, I may have opened an eyelid, blinking in the light turned on by a certain spouse who did make the choice I made and just stay in bed with me. But a few seconds later? Blackness...

Man, this Black Friday stuff is outstanding!

I say this like it was easy for me to avoid the stores this November. If this was last year, it would be a different story today. I would be writing about me getting up at 4 AM so that I could drive twelve miles and be half-asleep in a door-buster line at your local Wal-Mart at 5 AM. You see, I was on a mission from Santa Mom: My task was to score my son an iPod Touch with a free $50 Wal-Mart card for $225 (I got it by the way).

I have to admit, it was exciting...and stressful. I was probably the 6th or 7th person in line for the thing, and I heard the cashier whisper up front that there were, like, 12 of them for sale with that price. I was fist pumping my good fortune and beginning to wake up and enjoy this experience, but then I heard the following words from the first lady in line: "I want three..."

Talk about crapping on my Christmas spirit! There's got to be a special place in hell for people in a door-buster line who buy three of something when there are only twelve. It's just got to be against some rule in Leviticus somewhere. But I digress.

The point is, I was mighty tempted this year. I couldn't go to bed last night without thinking that I, as a member of the human club, was going to miss out on a required ritual. It would be like skipping a good ol' fashioned Western hangin', and I would be the only one who didn't have a story to tell about the poor guy's last words and leg twitching.

And I have to give it to the retail industry. It's just brilliant. The consortium of Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, and Macy's have created a cultural phenomenon that utilizes mind control waves that radiate from little boxes in our living rooms and offices. These malicious, hypnotizing signals haunt us with subliminal repetition:

"Spend hundreds of dollars on Black Friday or you will go to hellllllllllll...."

And so we all rise slowly from our slumber. We shuffle awkwardly in a daze to our cars. We then land in a parking lot in a mass of mindless bodies, and we move as one organism toward the light behind the glass doors.

But I am glad I didn't this year. Instead, I am enjoying my second cup of black coffee in my black chair typing on my black keyboard after a good 8 hours of blackness. And my bank account is...you guessed it...in the black.

Benji Battle lives and works as an educator, manager, and writer in Atlanta, GA, where he and his wife work daily to make a wiser, brighter home for their three children. Benji encourages people to ask more questions in life in order to achieve their goals and dreams. His blog "Think to Ask?" celebrates these questions at http://www.benjibattle.com

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News and Society: Economics
Benji Battle

Email Address:SubscribeEconomics Article FeedFind More ArticlesSearchRecent ArticlesHow To Solve The Homeless SituationProgressivism Isn't Progress, VIIIHow Secure Is Your "Secure" Job?A True Comparison Of Increasing Debt Between Bush And Obama AdministrationsHow To Compete With ChinaWould Einstein Think Us Insane?What Will Happen If Greece Defaults?A Cluster of (Minor) ErrorsThe US Recovery Is Producing SurprisesA Sigh Of Relief For The Economic Status Of The USSubmitted On November 26, 2011. Viewed 6 times. Word count: 594.

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Battle, Benji".".26 Nov. 2011EzineArticles.com.26 Jan. 2012 .APA Style Citation:
Battle, B. (2011, November 26). . Retrieved January 26, 2012, from http://ezinearticles.com/?A-­Different-­Kind-­of-­Black-­Friday&id=6718596Chicago Style Citation:
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