Idiots of the Week: Post-Thanksgiving Crazed Shoppers

Well, a lot of time has passed since I last posted. I was out of town for the Thanksgiving holidays and have been busy "catching up" since I've been back. Seems like I'm always busy catching up for one reason or another. I will try to add more blog entries over the next few days, but before any more time slipped by, I wanted to discuss my Idiots of the Week.

First, yet another pet peeve of mine. Why is it that on the local and national broadcast news on the Friday after Thanksgiving, one of the main stories, if not THE lead story, is holiday shopping? Is this really news? Don't we all know that the Friday after Thanksgiving (aka Black Friday) is the busiest shopping day of the year in our commercial, capitalistic society? Do we really need to see some poor local reporter unlucky enough to not have the day off hanging out at the local mall to ask people "What are you buying this year?" and ""What do you think about the crowds?" To the first question, I actually heard a guy reply, "Um probably clothes, um, clothing, and sweaters." Now that's news you can use.

But I digress, you probably saw the same "news" that I did that Friday night, where people were getting trampled as Wal-Mart stores opened in the wee hours Friday morning, people were getting into fights, people stood in long lines to check out, and tempers flared when the stores put out like a half dozen of some item on sale to lure people into the store and the suckers began to realize they'd been duped. My question: Was it really worth it? You got up at 4 a.m., got pushed around and generally physically abused, you wasted possibly hours standing in line to check out, and for $30 off of that crappy TV set? You people are idiots!

'Tis the season.