Brands of nonsense

Black Friday. You wouldn't join a stampede for a flat-screen TV, right? If you're reading this, if you're someone I know on-blog or in-life or both, it's a fair bet, and I think Charles Murray might have something to say about this. Personally, I spent the day doing a mix of laundry, test-writing, and parallel-parking-practice (getting there, but my three-point turns are exquisite). No malls.

Yes, Black Friday is gross. It evidently sucks for retail workers (see also: the Walmart picket line), and makes for some unfortunate visuals - this is the season of thankfulness (one that started early, with Sandy), and look, all these fools who can't just be happy with what they've already got. Even if the horde is buying gifts - you know, giving - it looks awfully greedy. And isn't the problem the American consumer's sense of entitlement? It's not like we even need any of this crap. After all, as the great storm showed, we're all slaves to our refrigerators.

But what's also meh - and yes, I'm repeating myself - is anti-Black-Friday smug indignation. Before you stare down your nose at the hordes, figure out what it is, exactly, that bothers you. If it's the unnecessary danger, the minimum-wage workers called in for nonsense on the one day a year all Americans are meant to spend with their families, fair enough. If it's consumer debt, I don't know, maybe remember that some of this is stuff people would buy anyway, but now they're doing so on sale? But if you shudder at all the materialism, while not minding a good sale one bit if it's on the higher-end stuff that interests you, that's something else. A flat-screen TV does nothing for me, but when that special Berlin nail polish was going for $9 a bottle, I was all over it. When I stumbled upon a sample sale in Chelsea Market featuring the best (and US-made, if you're into that) underwear brand, it's entirely possible that I took advantage. I can be smug about not having stomped on anyone in pursuit of my own brand(s) of nonsense, but that's about it.