Friday, November 27, 2009

Black Friday

No, it has nothing to do with Black History Month, Black Jack Pershing, or Black Flag. It's the day after Thanksgiving, the "official" start of the Christmas shopping season and the date on which merchants go "into the black" on the strength of initial holiday sales. It is so heavily advertised that someone (I think it was Mike) recently referred to Thanksgiving as "the day before Black Friday." Newspapers double in size as a result of many pounds of sale advertisements. Many offices are closed or reduced to minimum staffing, parking lots are jammed, traffic snarls around shopping centers, and otherwise rational people rush glassy-eyed into stores to buy overpriced stuff at relatively good prices.

But then, some of us have to work.

All things considered, I think I have it better. There will be two people in my office today, and we will likely be a significant percentage of the total population of the Pentagon. This is the day, along with the week between Christmas and New Year's, when I can get lots of work done without the interjection of ringing phones and gotta-have-this-by-close-of-business-today tasks. Yes, I would rather be sitting in front of the fire watching the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy while eating Chex Mix and drinking hot tea with spiced rum, but what are you gonna do?

Black Friday. Your best option is to stay home and let all that turkey and stuffing and potatoes and veggies and pie digest. If, however, you are one of those unfortunates like me who has to work (and actually has a job, no thanks to Congress), make the best of it. If you're going shopping, you have a death wish - just be careful out there.

After all, you want to be here next Thanksgiving.

Have a good day. Cartoon Saturday is tomorrow.

Bilbo

5 comments:

KKTSews said...

I actually reviewed yesterday's ads and made a short list of bargains maybe worth shopping for....but when I awoke at 5:30 (already LATE for the shopping) and saw/heard the freezing precip....I decided no bargain is worth risking the idiots on the road.
Enjoy your day at work. Play Holiday music loadly enough to mask the sound of the telephone ringing.

Leslie David said...

I'm at work too. Pretty empty office here as well. Shopping? What's that? I hate to shop and fortunately my family doesn't exchange gifts.

Mike said...

If work needed somebody to volunteer to work days like the day after Thanksgiving it would always be me. You're right, days like this are the calmest day you'll ever have at work.

The Mistress of the Dark said...

I got out of work early today. Had things not been screwed up, I would have been able to sleep in. I do all my shopping online anymore! Much easier and less stressful!

Amanda said...

There isn't a Black Friday type shopping day over here. This is the time that I start browsing the shops and taking note of what I want to get at the Boxing Day sale. Thats the crazy shopping day on this side.