Well, if you’re looking for further signs that
civilization is going to hell in a handbasket, I have a doozy for you.
Black Friday, it seems, is spreading beyond the borders
of these United States.
And by Black Friday I’m referring not only to retailers
advertising “deals” on their merchandise, but consumers acting like complete
pillocks in the pursuit of these alleged bargains.
Viz.: Stories out of the UK are documenting the kinds of
chaos and mayhem that we’ve experienced since the Cabbage Patch days. Yes, I’m
talking grown humanoids engaging in knock-down-drag-outs over limited numbers
of goods that are marked up only 135% instead of the normal 150% during “special”
operating hours.
There was the whole build-up, with people mobbing outside
various establishments in hopes of being the first through the door to get…whatever
it is that’s worth waiting for half the night outside a store in late November. (In my mind, this would be…nothing; but I recognize that if the economy depended on my
purchasing habits, we’d be in even deeper trouble than we are now.)
And local police and EMTs have been in overdrive, dealing with
the mayhem and maiming. So I’m thinking that I’d add Black Friday to
Remembrance Sunday on my list of Best Times to Knock Over a Liquor Store in
Britain, since every cop in the country is engaged elsewhere and I’d be pretty
well assured of a clean getaway.
But speaking of criminal stupidity, I got rather a kick
out of this guy in The Guardian’s report
from a North London Sainsbury’s: Andy Blackett, 30, had two carts full of merchandise.
“I got two coffee makers, two tablets, two TVs and a stereo,” he said. “I
couldn’t tell you the prices, but I know they’re bargains.”
Our financial master of the universe is—wait for it—a real
estate agent.
His apparently small pal had the TV he’d bagged taken
from him by someone bigger. Law of the retail jungle, baby.
(Well, it just occurred to me that Blackett may have
plans of selling his swag on Craig’s List, or eBay. So maybe not as idiotic as
I’d originally thought. His pal is still stuffed, though.)
At least he wasn’t arrested and didn’t require medical
treatment, which was how the day started and ended for a number of people
around the country.
And—okay—he also didn’t end up with an overpriced vacuum
cleaner, like another shopper interviewed. She’d been unable to get the
high-end electronics she’d come after, so she was standing there with a Dyson.
There’s some kind of poetic something surrounding that, but I’ll be blowed if I
know what it is.
Poor old Mother England—so eager to show moral and
cultural superiority over our crass, money-grubbing American hegemony. And they
end up importing something that only makes (limited) sense in the context of
the day-after-Thanksgiving signaling the start of the Christmas shopping
season. It seems bizarre that as we’re losing that context here, the Brits
latch onto it and make it every bit as grubbily theirs as it used to be ours.
And, oh—you don’t believe me about the fights? Take a
look, sunshine. Not so merry-old, eh?
Oh—but this is probably a windup:
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