Weekend book sales!!!!

The season of shopping and Sales! Sales! Sales! has begun, and I and a bunch of other authors would like you to know how you too can save...

Well, okay, maybe not big money and not all the way until Christmas. But! Thanks to the hard work of Hans G. Schantz, there is a Black Friday/Cyber Monday book sale running until Tuesday the 28th. Every book is 99 cents or less!  

I got the word via Perfessor Squirrel, that enigmatic maven of the written word, and barely got a book in on time. Here's what I submitted:

It’s 1951, and Army veteran McMann is down in his luck in a Texas town, accompanied by his partner, Duck. Duck is an actual duck, which McMann credits for saving his life in the war. They are asked to investigate a case of theft at the local trucking company, where an employee vanished with the contents of the safe. The search for the missing man leads to the discovery of a murder — a murder in which McMann himself looks like an interesting suspect to the sheriff. Of course, all the locals think he’s crazy already, hanging around with a duck. Can McMann and Duck find the real killer — or will the real killer find them first?

How can you resist? It's got everything great -- murder, danger, Texas, ducks... all for 99 cents. And if that doesn't do it for you, you'll find plenty of books by other authors that will. 

So visit the site and get all your reading needs settled for a small clutch of simoleons. Happy reading to you! 

Fred's Book Club: Black Friday Blues.

Greetings, book lovers, and welcome to another edition of the Humpback Writers. What dumb name is that, you ask? Why, it's a dumb name that reflects the fact that it is posted on Wednesdays, or Hump Day. Which, on Thanksgiving week, is more like Friday for most of us, but never mind. It's still dumb.

But speaking of work, today's book is all about retail, reflecting the Thanksgiving tradition of going to the mall and knocking people over for Black Friday sales. Of course everything is different this year, what with Chinese Death Virus preventing the usual doorbusters, thanks to government diktats and retailer fears of causing so-called super-spreader events. Also, with the blessings of our city leaders, the summer had plenty of doorbusters of another kind, wherein people would literally bust down doors and help themselves to 100% discounts. But that's another story. 

Our focus today is on the plight of the retail worker, and there's no better source than Norm Feuti, writer and illustrator of the comic strip Retail from 2006 to this past February. Feuti published a book on the subject in 2007, featuring a bunch of the strips from the series, called Pretending You Care: The Retail Employee Handbook.  

"I am of the opinion that everyone should hold a retail job at least once in their life," writes Feuti in the introduction, "not because I think it's an enjoyable experience, but because I think it builds empathy for the human condition. I believe that working in retail for more than fifteen years has taught me a lot about people and the world we live in. The things I've learned are not always pretty, but they are valuable and true nonetheless." 

For example, one of the things he stresses is that you have to pay your dues. Under the heading "Being the Newbie," he writes, "The transition from newbie to trusted colleague is a slow process, so you should count on being handed the crappiest jobs the store has to offer for at least the first month. Everyone has to go through an initiation period, so when they tell you to clean the toilets or climb into the cardboard compactor when it gets jammed, just suck it up. You can't be accepted into the flock until you've felt their pain." This is indeed good life advice; it teaches humility, but conversely, when you've survived the crap jobs, you learn some self-respect for being able to handle adversity. 

Another important lesson is etiquette, or "How Not to Be the One Everybody Hates," and Feuti devotes an entire chapter to the subject. "Certain actions and behaviors will be considered unacceptable by your coworkers, and if you break these taboos too frequently you'll soon find yourself the object of everyone's scorn. If you walk into the break room and everyone suddenly stops talking, it's a good bet that you're doing something the rest of the staff considers 'not cool.'" He goes on to detail a number of ways you can screw up and infuriate your coworkers through poor etiquette in the retail setting, something that should be required reading for everyone in the business.

Throughout the book are scattered cartoons from the Retail strip, which was very funny, even to those of us who mostly experience retail from the other side of the register. Here is a sample page:

And here's a page particularly appropriate to Black Friday:

On the topic of the products sold by the store, the author makes an interesting distinction in a chapter called, logically, "Products" -- "all retailers tend to think of their merchandise in the same way. Whether they're selling jeans, computers, or Rubik's Cubes, retailers all see their individual wares as generic 'products' that affect the bottom line in either a positive or negative way." So the things that the front-line workers deal with are only 1s and 0s to the home office, tabulated to generate the bottom line of profit or loss. Which explains why the buyer can be very frustrated to find something he wanted is no longer available; that particular product (bit of data) wasn't generating enough money (bit of data desired). 

And yes, Feuti deals with one of the most irritating experiences in retail -- the sudden offer to enroll in a credit card program that offers a whatever discount or something, even if you are only spending five bucks. It's irritating on both sides of the counter, but the guys in the home office hundreds of miles away aren't bothered in the least.

One more section I wanted to mention, though, that's applicable to any workplace is what Feuti calls the Archetypes -- twelve basic types that employees run into. For example, the Animosity Generator is rude, inept, lazy, unhelpful, and gives everyone and the store a bad name. The Slacker is a master of goofing off. The Whiner complains about everything, but everyone else's suffering is invisible to him. The Transient (retail's most populous Archetype) is only hanging in there until something better comes along. And so on. 

It's a fun book and would make a fine present for the retail Lifer (another Archetype) on your list. Feuti's cartoon work is bright and clever; he's busy these days doing another strip called Gil and books for children, and good for him. He won't have to return to the cash register any time soon. 

As for me, I never worked in a retail store (they wouldn't hire me), but I was a teller for a year. So I met all the cranky customers in front of the desk and the same Archetypes behind the desk, thus I still clicked with the book. Pretending You Care is a book for anyone who's ever had a job, especially one that deals with the public. Scary things, publics.

So what's out there on Black Friday?

I ask myself: Self, is it worth shopping on Black Friday? 

And I answer: No.

I think I've related this before, but in living memory -- the 1990s, damn it -- Black Friday may have been a financial thing for the stores, turning red ink of debt to black ink of profit, but for shoppers it was not such a big deal. The day after Thanksgiving my wife and I went to a mall at 10:00 a.m. to get through early before the crowds started. Indeed, there was hardly anyone there, and a lot of the stores were just opening, and many opened late, because the day before had been a big holiday and the whole mall was closed. We were there for a couple of hours, tops, and the place was still not crowded. 

What the flaming hell has happened to us since, people? How have we gone so insane in a little over twenty years? 

I don't associate Thanksgiving with doorbusters. I still associate it with the more traditional pantsbusters. 

Anyway, take it from me, the stuff out there isn't worth fighting over. I'm serious. Some things are fun, like this wine bottle gift bag that I liked enough to take a picture of but not enough to buy, except now I wish I had gotten a couple but I'm not going back today:

A couple of people on my wife's list are getting wine, and they could probably use the reminder that Santa's always watching. So are the state troopers.

Then there's these fabulous items, seen on JCPenney's site:

Yes, you can get great deals on a decorative skull wearing a crown. The eyes are battery powered. I think it would make a perfect bong, but doesn't appear to be suited for that use. I don't actually know what the hell it is supposed to be used for. Halloween? Day of the Dead? But what's up with the crown?

You can also get great deals on this watermelon tapper, a product that seems like a bad idea to me. You hollow out the watermelon, pour in the booze-laden beverage, and you have an instant party drink server. The problem is that I don't think it comes with some kind of feet to keep the watermelon propped up, and in my experience melons tend to roll a lot. I can't see this not making a sticky mess.

Meanwhile, over at Sears, which still exists, we have the Jaclyn Smith home collection. I yield to no man in my admiration for Smith, and much of the Sears home collection that bears her name is pretty nice. But this blog being what it is, I had to zero in on the thing that struck me as all wrong:

This Christmas tree ornament is supposed to be a ring of reindeer horns, but I think that 100% of Christians would think it was Christ's crown of thorns. I have no objection to Christian symbols on a Christmas tree; I have a decorative cross with a quote from Chesterton on mine, actually. I might even go with a crown of thorns, a reminder of the salvation behind the Incarnation -- but not made of reindeer horns. That's a badly mixed metaphor. As if Santa was a Roman prison guard. Who puts horns in a ring, anyway?

Finally, I saw this in Walmart and was completely not tempted to buy it, but I sort of admired it all the same:

Yes, men (for this was in the men's clothing section), you too can get the Deranged Easter Bunny Suit as worn by Ralphie in the film classic A Christmas Story. Don't you want to come downstairs on Christmas morning looking like a pink nightmare? Neither do I. But if you must, or you must give it to someone on your list, remember to get this genuine Christmas Story version of the suit, complete with the attached bunny slippers.

If this all hasn't saved you from making a foray out into retail madness, there's not much else I can say. Humor writer Dave Barry has yet to release his annual gift guide, which is a shame, because that usually kills every desire anyone has to shop ever again. Good luck, and let us know if you survive.

It's all Freud and games.

Had to go to Walmart -- well, maybe no one ever has to, but I needed a variety of objects -- so I decided to pick up something for the tots on my list. No waiting for Black Friday, not this guy! Besides, on Black Friday I'll be too busy digesting from Feast Thursday.

I wanted to pick up a particular game, a multi-generational classic, but it took a while to even find games, with all the aisles of licensed character crap out there. And speaking of crap, when I did find the games, my first thought was -- why are we trying to raise a generation obsessed with scatology?

Pass the Poop! is a fun-filled... Well, it's filled with something, anyway. The game seems to be a musical-chairs or hot-potato style event where you pass the emoji-like poop toy about until the music stops and that person, like poop itself, is eliminated. Or so I am guessing from the box. The whole thing looks pretty sad to me. 

And if that's not enough poop for your party, here's Don't Step In It! If the name and the box were not illustrative enough, the words Llama Poop are helpfully spelled out. What are the rules? You wear a blindfold and try not to step on the fake (one hopes) llama poop. It's educational for your child's future career as a college administrator, or residence in San Francisco. In my youth, games with imperative titles were less disgusting (Don't Break the Ice! Don't Blow Your Top! Don't Wake Daddy! Don't Mess Around with Jim!) (spot the fake).

Moving slightly away from poop, we have Gas Out, a game featuring a toy fart named Guster. It looks like Uno combined with Pass the Poop -- there's a card game involved, but if Guster lets one rip during your turn, you're blown out of the game. It's a blast!

If you didn't get enough llama-like action but you're tired of bringing up the rear, Hackin' Packin' Alpaca is the spitting image of what you want. Looks like an updated version of the Last Straw, a game with a plastic camel and a bunch of things to load him with. In that game the camel would break when overloaded. Here, the alpaca spits rather than splits. Maybe it's more humane this way. I expectorate lots of fun with this on Christmas morning!

Getting away from the gastrointestinal system entirely, we have Pimple Pete, a game actually endorsed by TV's Dr. Pimple Popper (who may be weird but I can tell you from work-related experience is as friendly and helpful as she appears on television). The game here is to do to Pete what dermatologists have been telling us not to do for decades -- pop pimples. Why? I don't know. Why does poor Cavity Sam get it in the neck (and everywhere else) in Operation, the wacky doctor game? At least Operation teaches you that sometimes you have to use surgery. You probably should never go popping your buddy's pimples.

Enough with the games! Maybe a plain toy is what I need.

Uh...

Butt Heads' Fart Launcher 3000 -- don't you just love that space-age "3000" in the name? Buck Rogers used one! -- does what even the gas game above does not: It makes real GI-tract-like gas odors. And you can shoot them! At your friends! I mean, yeah, we did that when we were kids, but we were seventeen, and instead of the Fart Launcher 3000 we used Piels. I can't imagine the circumstances that would lead me to want to give my own child a Fart Launcher. Someone else's child, on the other hand... someone I don't like... hmm.

But I bought none of these toys on this trip.

Sadly, I could not even find what I was looking for, a popular game from my childhood, something much cleaner and more wholesome than these, something based not on biological functions but on... uh, head lice. But they were all out of Cootie.

Turkeyist.

Black Sunday fell two days too soon?

Well, here it is, the day after Thanksgiving, and I hope you have not been trampled to death. If so, please inform me immediately, and I shall send my condolences to your next of kin.

The stores seem to invite this. What is a "doorbuster" if not an invitation to break in and grab everything? Like advertising for barbarians. This is the mall, not the Bastille. These stores are asking for trouble.

A few years ago on the old blog I christened the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as Puce Wednesday. I think my idea was that it would darken to a nice festive brown on Thursday and go all black for Friday. My original 2013 piece went down with the Blog.com Website, but I retained pictorial proof of the research I did on the rainy Wednesday before Thanksgiving at the Macy's mother ship in Herald Square:

Checkin' out the merch

After Friday we transfer out of the colors and straight into no-euphemism mercantilism. Saturday is Small Business Saturday, when we repent of buying stuff at Walmart and Target and buy from the local knuckleheads instead of national chain stores run by local knuckleheads. Monday of course is Cyber Monday, the day we shop at the office while we're supposed to be working. 

I guess we get Sunday off from shopping, maybe to digest leftovers. If you're so inclined, the first Sunday after Thanksgiving is often the First Sunday in Advent, but not in 2017; this year December has five Sundays, and Advent doesn't start until December 3.

So I guess that's our list of assignments for the weekend. Please be safe out there and don't put life and/or limb on the line for the sake of some bargain. Your people need you more than they need more stuff, no matter what your teenager may say.

(P.S.: Classic title reference -- hi, Stiiv!)

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.)