Never fails---crack of dawn that day after Thanksgiving and "tent cities" miraculously appear around Wal-Mart, sometimes stretching for miles as crazed shoppers battle to be first to get their greedy paws on this years "must-have" toy. Normally mild-mannered, friendly neighbors become raging fiends when those doors open at 4a.m., and woe to the hapless store employee who gets in their way! Teeth bared, claws unsheathed, these "holiday" shoppers are ready to kill for those famously-advertised limited quantities ("only six Playstations per store..."), while all the while those caroles grind out endlessly from the loud-speakers....Good Will Toward Men? Fuhgehdaboudit! No time to help that little old lady who somehow got caught on your cart as you plowed your way through the mad hordes; hey, it's kill or be killed during the shopping season, y'know. She would have most likely driven her wheelchair into you if things had been the other way around, right?
Besides, why the hell do these old cripples always insist on getting ahead of normal people? Don't they know only the strong survive holiday mega-sales? Hell, if they want their grandkids to get this stuff, let'em get on the parents to do it. No red-blooded American parent would allow their little Johnny or Susy to go without that hideously over-priced, sweat-shop-produced (by little hard-working Juanitos y Susitas overseas) flimsy contraption all the poor kids on your blockhave been crying about since September. You care enough to fight for your kids rights to have everything, whether or not they need it---so why don't those? Damn peace-protesters, probably; too busy bawling over filthy kid-terrorists in Iraq to care for their own, naturally. What's this country coming to, I ask you?
Christmas shopping is an American tradition, for cryin out loud! Just like turkey, and the Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to table on the first Thanksgiving... What? You say they didn't celebrate that way? The Pilgrims actually stole the food from the Indians, then let 'em all starve? Well, that's the American Way. Survival of the Fittest and all that. We work hard for what we get, so we're entitled to it. The rest of the world complains----tough! God's on our side....
And so it goes, folks. Have yourself a greedy little Christmas/Chanukah, and don't forget to give thanks to that Almighty Dollar, either. Did someone just say mammon?
