There are only four more days until the biggest shopping day of the year! Black Friday is almost upon us. I don’t know about all of you Rotonioners (Rotonioner – n. the obsessive followers of the Rotonion; I believe we are up to six of them), but I’m going to be up bright and early -- or late -- at midnight on Thanksgiving for shopping! (I would include more exclamation points to emphasize my excitement, but the copy staff would just edit them out. Buzzkills.)
Thanksgiving is great and all. Ok, not really. More on this subject in my article from last week.
Once we’ve gotten all of that faux thankfulness and stuffing our faces out of the way, it’s time for exercise. Pushing around a shopping cart and running over anyone that falls in your path is the number one way to burn off fat. Experts say that one hour of crushing skulls beneath the plastic wheels of a metal crap-bin can cause you to lose as much as fifty calories.
That’s enough to convince ourselves that it’s ok that we eat three times our body weight in one meal, right?
Besides, what are we else going to do after we wake up from our annual cholesterol-induced coma?
Aside from health benefits, Black Friday shopping is a great way to burn off steam before the last two weeks of classes. Not only can you bulldoze your way over the weak and fallen, but you can also practice stress relief in the inevitable moment where you find yourself in a cat fight over that last pair of sleek black, fleece-lined leggings. It’s the only time of the year where fighting in public is practically expected.
Let’s not forget the wonderful concept that drives the entire Black Friday Shoppapalooza. It’s the same idea that this beautiful country was forged upon and still thrives on to this day.
Capitalism.
With free reign on the market, trade tycoons can drive prices up or pull them down with a snap of their fingers.
It’s this amazing system that allows for our crap-binge during events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas in July, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, seasonal transitions, and pretty much any other day centered on buying useless junk for people to appreciate for two seconds and then either eat it or throw it out. Many departments stores also have regular sales EVERY WEEK in an attempt to pull customers in, and if that isn’t a reason to appreciate capitalism, I don’t know what is.
Black Friday is also the only holiday that involves appreciation of being wealthy. It’s the only day of year when you can go around bragging about how much you have or bought without looking like a huge jerk and being called ‘privileged’ by those crazy internet liberals.
Gosh darn you, internet liberals. You make it hard for me to boast about how much I have in comparison to people with less than me.
So, go out! Enjoy the sprint toward the holiday season! Buy lots of useless junk! For those of you Black Friday shoppers who are really clumsy, it’s been nice knowing you.
