by B. Thomas Cooper

Created on: November 23, 2007   Last Updated: January 30, 2009

Black Friday, it's All About the Green!

The holiday shopping season officially begins in earnest today, as millions of anxious shoppers spend hours jostling for parking spaces among throngs of irritable, but willing participants in this annual ritual. Black Friday, yes, it's tradition now. Up goes the brilliantly illuminated but obviously artificial Christmas trees, standing testament to what's really behind this seasonal cash-letting frenzy. It's all about the cheese, my friends. Black Friday is all about the green!

Ah, tis the season. Our new plasma, wide-screen televisions are just jumping with adorable digital images of ice-skating polar bears, and beer bottles going for the field goal. None of it's real of course. Not even the fat, jolly guy who gets all the credit for what many of us will still be paying for next year at this time. The fat guy did it! I'm a victim of identity theft.

And you really feel alright about letting your three year old sit on this guys lap? I'd swear, without the hat and beard, he looks suspiciously like that sex offender who just moved in across the street from the comic book store. You don't suppose?

And why should Santa care who's been naughty? Isn't the holiday supposed to be about sharing? If we didn't share with those who have been naughty, we would have the whole world to ourselves. Correction, you would.

List or no list, I would undoubtedly fall into the naughty' category, primarily, because I am categorically naughty. You know the bit. Sometimes, when I am angry or impatient, I speak in tongues. I go into fits, slurring and flailing about like some madman, spewing vindictives even the Bible wouldn't print.

In fact, I suspect a lot more people can relate than care to admit. Furthermore, I would be willing to be all the cheese changing hands this holiday season, thousands, if not millions are speaking in similar tongues at this very moment, shouting, and slurring, as they drive endless circles through endless parking lots in search of a lone space, any space, in a sea of cars and humanity, all in quest of black nirvana.

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