Saturday, December 27, 2014

The week that wasn't

My least favorite week is happening as we speak. The time slot between Xmas and New Years is an empty, dead thing. No one does anything, everyone's on vacation, nothing of note occurs and there is no news at all. The silence is deafening. If I could put myself into a nice restful coma with an end date of January 2nd, I'd do it. What the heck, I wouldn't miss anything.

But on the other hand, those damn sales are still going on. It seems the retail industry is setting itself up for a fall. The lesson presented this year is clear: don't buy anything unless it's December. Otherwise you'll pay too much. Something tells me this isn't a functional plan for the retailers. Only sell in December at rock-bottom prices? This will lead to failure.

But Americans have totally bought into the idea of becoming a new species: homo shoppiens. The purpose of life is (wait for it) buying things. And then hooray, life is fabulous. Yeah, for about five minutes. I understand that this is just the hunter-gatherer instinct gone wild, but it's still obscene.

And you have to buy things. Well, if you need things, anyway. I just bought four sweaters at Old Navy for $12 each. I mean, seriously, how can you not buy them? So I'm a sinner too.

But I know it's wrong. This isn't the pinnacle of human achievement we were hoping for merely decades ago. We've lost our place, our bookmark. We're not progressing anymore. All we're doing is lining our nests and making sure no one else can climb into them. Damn those immigrants cuckoo birds!

We've lost our way, folks. And I think it's too late to search for the path we were on. Ah, who cares? Let's go eat donuts and shop online.