And so another Thanksgiving in Brooklyn is upon us. Holy cow, it’s our third one here already! In the spirited tradition of our first Thanksgiving as New Yorkers we’re having baked ziti. If I had my way I’d be at mom and dad’s gorging myself with turkey and various savory pasty accompaniments such as mom’s amazing mashed spuds, jalapeño corn puddin’, sleazy greazy cheesy potatoes, and homemade stuffin’. Contrary to what Midwestern stereotype suggests I am not a casserole fan in the least. If there happened to be a cauldron of green bean casserole in the hizzay (which there often is) I would fish all and any salvageable Durkee’s French Fried Onion chunks out of it and pound those down. God damn are those things good. It’s a weird kind of good though – not so good if you have a whole can at your disposal and consume it. Some foods taste better when indulging in more is not an option. Durkee’s onions are probably on the top of my list of those foods. Andes mints are another one. If I get 1 or 2 at the deli I am left with an insatiable craving for more, yet if I buy a whole box I plow through it in a day and feel like Pizza the Hutt.
Back in the aforementioned 1990s Target era of my employment history I used to have to go in to work every Thanksgiving Eve. Leaving Grandma Gertie’s with a gut full of bird and fixins and spending the next 10 hours making sure Barbies and EZ Bake Ovens were fully stocked was always quite the wet Thanksgiving blanket. Why they couldn’t have us accomplish that on Wednesday and give us Thursday off is beyond me. 8 to 10 hours later at around 5AM the following morning people would start parking and standing outside of the store. At 8AM the doors to the store were unlocked. We would hide in the stockroom and watch the herd of bloodthirsty parka swaddled bargain hunting bulls scurry to their respective aisles. That is how the day formerly known as The Day After Thanksgiving commenced back in the pre-Black Friday days. Such good times.
Somewhere between then and now I think The Day After Thanksgiving was kidnapped and thrown into an old primered Chevy van with no back windows and driven to an abandoned warehouse. Once there it was severely beaten and forced to undergo a horrific experimental identity reassignment surgery. The unfortunate outcome was what everybody now lovingly refers to as Black Friday. It was supposed to be killed but somehow escaped the testing facility and returns every year on Thanksgiving week to haunt us. It’s always fun to watch the evening news footage of shoppers trampling over one another. For all we know they could just be showing the same clip every year. And let’s not forget what they love to show most – the unfortunate few who walk (or limp) away injured. Last year I participated in my first ever “Black Friday” sale. Here’s how it went down: At around noon I called Best Buy, made sure they had the camera we wanted in stock, went to Best Buy, stood in line for 10 minutes, bought the camera, and left. You don’t see footage of that on the news now, do you?
I understand for some Black Friday participants that it’s the thrill of the hunt. I can respect that. I think. Kind of like in the old days when we used to have to camp out for concert tickets. The earlier you got in those Ticketbastard lines the better chance you had of scoring an awesome seat. Unlike concert seats though, once your coveted Black Friday item is out of stock that doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. It may be $10-20 more, but it’s not gone. It doesn’t pack its bags and move itself over to the endangered species list… That happens 6 months later when technological advancements render it obsolete.
Retailers are the ones that truly chap my hide with all of this, mainly by beating the phrases “Black Friday” and “Door Busters” to death. In recent years they’ve been bending the Black Friday rules. BIG time. Look at the words BLACK FRIDAY very carefully:
BLACK FRIDAY
Note that the day of the week mentioned in those two words is Friday. This year I’ve received emails from every retailer I’ve ever bought anything from telling me that Black Friday now begins on other days like Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. You cannot have Friday on a Wednesday. That’s not how calendars are built. There are 7 days in a week. If Friday is on a Wednesday then what takes the place of Friday? Does Friday become Wednesday? If I told my boss on a Wednesday “Well, I’ve decided that it’s Friday now so alrighty then, okie dokie, bubbeye, we’ll see you on Monday!” I’m guessing that wouldn’t fly. How much earlier will it appear next year? How premature will Black Friday be in 2015? 2020? Will we eventually be going to Black Friday sales for the following year the day after Cyber Monday?
Cyber Monday. Now there’s a media/retail day of observance that’s got to go. It’s not nearly as hyped as Black Friday but you can’t avoid hearing about it every year while you’re still nursing the scars from Black Friday fatigue. The term “Cyber” is so fucking cheesy. It instantly drums up the image of a futuristic metallic helmet powered by a 9v battery that has one eye covered with a laser-shooting robot eye and a microphone you speak through that makes your voice sound like that robot voice in the beginning of Def Leppard’s Love Bites. It also reminds me of Dateline segments about chat room pervs who get off on having “cyber sex” with 12 year old boys. Let’s retire the word “cyber”, shall we? It’s 2011 now. We need to leave cyber where it belongs which is back in 1996.
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I look forward to celebrating The Day After Thanksgiving the way I like spending The Day After Thanksgiving most: Sleeping in followed by coffee/breakfast in PJs with the wifey and cats. Families: We miss you tons. For reals. My condolences to anyone who has to work on Thanksgiving/Christmas, especially those of you who work retail. As you now know I’ve been there/done that and it’s not fun at all. Back in my immoral days as a young disgruntled overnight shelf stocking Target team member my coping mechanism was taking a box of white fudge covered Oreos off of the shelf, finding a good hiding spot for it, and grazing my sorrows away. I bet you didn’t know I was so full of sin. Somehow I’ve managed to look in the mirror every day since and not hate who I see. Sorry Target, but I think those couple of boxes of Oreos more than make up for my annual 35 cent raises and commemorative 3 year 
anniversary Target logo key chain. Speaking of food that tastes good when you can’t have a lot of it, those white wax covered Oreos definitely fall into that category. Delicious as they are, you don’t need to know what it’s like to be around an endless supply of them. They certainly were pleasing to the palate on Target’s dime (as I was getting holiday pay to eat them no less) but a few years later when I wanted a walk down memory lane and bought a box I could only get through one of those waxy pucks and I was done. I didn’t understand what I ever saw in them.
May each and every one of you experience your own white fudge covered Oreo high this Thanksgiving in some form or another, hopefully via a slightly more legitimate route than I took back at Target. To all of you who are opting to barge through a store like a mad cow on Friday morning just keep it real and remember that it’s just stuff. If you don’t score that great deal? That’s okay, just hop onto the internets and watch footage Michele Bachmann speaking. Your problem will seem miniscule by comparison.
