No doubt, some of you are on the road home, or perhaps still on the road going somewhere, and may whatever particular deity you believe in have mercy on your spirit, soul, bank account, or whatever you consider most holy. 

For my part, even early in the week, days before Black Friday, I can see into the future, where there is fire in the fireplace (gas logs), dogs on the bed, and it’s warm and toasty inside, with a moderate amount of yardwork being done, then writing. 

Mom and I will not be venturing forth for Thanksgiving, and we sure as hell aren’t leaving the house and hounds for Black Friday. 

For the greater part of my life, I would venture to Mom’s house and my father’s house for the holidays, but with Mom here, anyone wishing to see me, and her, must come here now. I will travel no more on the holidays, and neither will Mom. 

I have never shopped on this day, and I never will. There were people injured in a riot a few years ago in the Valdosta Wal-Mart when a fight broke out over towels being sold for four dollars. I have no idea what the towels were made of that people would fight over them, but I cannot imagine getting into a fist fight with several other people for towels. It sounds stupid from over here. 

One year, there were people camping out at the Best Buy in Valdosta to buy laptops that were cheap. The line was fifty people long at midnight. The laptops were still on sale a week later, and you didn’t have to sleep on concrete to get one. 

A friend of mine bought a gun safe on Black Friday back in 2017. He got it dirt cheap, and once he bought it, they helped him load it on a trailer, and he was screwed. It was too heavy for the two of us to get it into his house, and once he started doing the measurements, it wouldn’t fit through the door. “Pivot! Pivot!” Six inches of the safe had to be cut off or six inches of the doorway. Going in longways would have worked but it had to be turned to get it in, and that would have taken a gang of men with muscles. The safe sat on the trailer for three weeks until he sold it. But he got such a great deal on it. 

Mostly, like all things involved with Christmas, Black Friday is a time of waste. Huge piles of garbage will be generated for no good reason at all, and people will buy things they do not need and will not use, simply because they can. 

But for the next month or so, more of that will go on than any other time of the year. 

Take Care,

Mike

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit.

Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.