Photo: L. Weikel

Just Gross

I just logged onto my laptop to write tonight’s post and was met with something that’s just gross. Call me a prude, call me old-fashioned, but I was disgusted when my computer’s calendar popped up a notification alerting me to the fact that tomorrow is Black Friday.

Really?

Black Friday gets as much of a calendrical shout out as, say, Memorial Day? New Year’s Day? Or dare I say Thanksgiving?

Why in the world would this even be something marked on anyone’s calendar? It’s not a day of honoring, celebration, reverence, seasonal significance, or even religious observation. It’s simply a day of mass consumerism.

Breaking Even

Yes, I know the importance of Black Friday is that it is a day where people go out and purchase stuff in such a massive frenzy that the dollars spent cause retailers’ balance sheets to not only break even but go from being ‘in the red’ to ‘in the black.’ Therefore, it’s a day of huge importance to purveyors of goods, mostly – although those who sell their services also get in on the scramble.

I’ll confess: I’m not a big shopper to begin with. But this year, especially, the whole concept of Black Friday feels utterly icky. I can only hope against hope that we’re spared videos or photos of people clambering cheek to jowl for the chance to barge into stores for bargains. They’re disheartening to witness any year – but now? In the year of Our Dear Lord Please Don’t Let It Get Any Worse 2020? It makes me want to take a hot soapy shower just thinking about it.

It also makes me want to cry.

From Today to Tomorrow

How do we manage to internally shift gears from spending today feeling grateful for the people and circumstances in our lives, great and small, that make life worth living – and feeling responsible to express that gratitude and love by remaining away and separated from those we love and cherish – to spending the next day potentially exposing ourselves and each other to a deadly virus just to buy stuff?

Kind of ironic, all that ‘spending.’

Maybe my cynicism is unwarranted. Perhaps we’ll all be pleasantly shocked tomorrow evening by the dearth of evidence that people threw public health and caring for friends, neighbors, and loved ones (not to mention themselves) to the wind in service to their need to acquire stuff.

I’m not in any way suggesting that if Black Friday is your day to spend lots of money and help shopkeepers breathe a sigh of relief that you should refrain from doing so. I’m only hoping you’ll do it remotely, or at the very least intelligently and compassionately. If we don’t take care of ourselves and each other, next year there will be significantly fewer of us around to buy a damn thing.

Let’s carry forward our gratitude and appreciation for each other. Stay home; spend money online, and if you have to go out, wear masks and stay far away from each other. Short term hassle, long term health and life and the opportunity to spend another day – and hopefully many more – spending.

(T-365)