Coal-black Friday.

Today is Black Friday, a day that has nothing to do with slavery (despite what some morons may think). Hard as it is to believe, Black Friday was not that big a deal even twenty years ago. I remember going out to the mall that year, getting there just as it opened, and it was dead. Tons of parking. Many of the stores had not opened yet. We were gone by eleven a.m., and it was only then starting to get busy. How this all turned into overnight camping and rushing the doors and behaving like panicked wildebeest is beyond me.

I do most of my Christmas shopping online now. Not that I have anything against shopping. I like it. Controlled environment, cornucopia of earthly delights, people forced to be friendly to me. Fine. But no matter what time of day you go, you have to wear pants. Who needs that?

Everyone wants to get good loot at Christmas, and nice people like you want to give it to them. So of course, people like us would fight our way through the crowds to get the perfect present. We wouldn't dream of buying anything for ourselves on Black Friday.

Or maybe you're not quite that nice. Maybe you're a selfish jerk and Santa is going to bring you coal for Christmas. You say: "Well, of course we have to buy for ourselves! We're getting a stocking full of coal! But we'll already have what we want! Har har!"

Oh, yeah, you bum? Let me tell you something, pal. You know who would be really grateful for anything for Christmas? You know who would be grateful for just a lousy frigging lump of coal in his stocking? THIS guy:

That's right: Bob Cratchit writes letters to Father Christmas begging for that lump of coal that you're getting because you're so mean.

Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

But you whine because they're out of the 70-inch Vizios that you wanted. Don't you feel GUILTY now?

(Okay, I've done my bit to support the anticonsumerist push required by the Amalgamated Tut-Tutting Reporters of America, whose newspapers would sell their mothers to get better ad money from the retails they abjure so mightily. All right, that's enough; go about your business.)