Black Friday

Posted on November 29, 2008 by Citizen Ted

Let me make this clear: if you got up early on Friday to line up outside some stupid retail hell in order to “score bargains”, you are a moron who deserves to be etched from the tapestry of human experience. If you are reading this and you are one of those people, I strongly recommend you kill yourself immediately. Just find some rope and hang yourself. Really.

In the news today, a WalMart employee was killed when the usual Black Friday stampede trampled over his sorry WalMart ass. In the coming months, we’ll endure all the lawsuits and dodged responsibilities that these events generate. All the while, we will utterly ignore the ignoble, unAmerican, uncivilized idiocy that is Black Friday – the cause of all this garbage. No one will blame stupidity and crass corporate greed for this annual self-humiliation. Instead, we will wonder how we can improve it so next year won’t be so homicidally vapid.

But there is another way. There is the Way of Ted. If you are patient and listen well, I can offer you a chance to enjoy Black Friday with pride, humility and joy. Are you ready? OK. Here we go:

On Thanksgiving Day, enjoy yourself. Stay up late. Eat that piece of pie. Fuck it. Then, on Friday morning, sleep in till noon. That’s right: noon. Ignore the pets/kids/neighbors and whatever. Tell every one and every thing to to go fuck itself. Then, get up slowly and in your own good time. Make some breakfast. French toast is a good choice. Be sure to have some organic juice, too. Not the stuff with the corn syrup. The good stuff.

After breakfast, pay attention to your loved ones and pets. In no time, it’ll be dinner time. Eat out or stay in; doesn’t matter. Then, in the evening, you should watch a movie or have sex with someone. I know you slept in late, but you will feel sleepy again before midnight. I promise. Off to bed with you!

There you go. A picture perfect Black Friday. This is the day after Thanksgiving. Treat it like the day after Thanksgiving.

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Bah, HumTurkey!

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Citizen Ted

Well, some of you meddlers have inquired about my plans for the so-called “Thanks-giving” holiday. I can assure you, I won’t be wasting my time with such frivolities as are expected in this day and age, when men can idle themselves in empty reverie. No, I do not respond to the klaxon call of manufactured celebration like the rest of you lay-abouts. Not when there is proper work to be done!

Each Thanks-giving I work late, covering for that shirker Cratchit. At least I’m free of his bumbling excuses and can concentrate on extracting some profit from my meager enterprise. With all the town fools away in their awful little homes, the office is actually quite quiet and amenable to those willing to invest their time in useful pursuits, rather than frittering away their hours in such frivolities as roasted turkey and sport-games.

What are you looking at? Get back to reading the story, damn you!

You can rest assured that something good will come of my efforts; it is by labour that the fruits of life are wrought, and while Cratchit is home with his dour wife and menacing brood, I will be here, in this office, making good on plans well conceived without the help of oafish others!

Come dusk I’ll fix myself a nice bowl of thin gruel, so as not to upset my stomach. As evening draws near, it’s time to head home, where I can relax in my dressing-gown and indulge in a good book, preferably one extolling the virtues of market economics. With a shuffle of feet and heavy sigh, I’ll extinguish my candle and dream away of the riches to come – riches borne of effort and sacrifice! What know you of such things, busy as you are giving thanks to long-forgotten Puritan fools and the barbarians they befriended! Pah! Pish!

So go ahead and enjoy your candied yams and moving-pictures! While your Thursday passes with nigh an indication of any accomplishment whatever, you can be sure that mine has put crowns in my pocket and black ink on the ledger!

That’s all I have for you now, so go away! Off with you! Go on, now! Can’t you see I am working?


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As God is my Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Citizen Ted

These words were spoken by Les Nessman on the ancient TV show “WKRP in Cincinnatti”. He was running a Thanksgiving radio promotion and released a huge rafter of turkeys out of an airplane, where they plunged to their deaths. It was a funny show, but it belied the truth: turkeys CAN fly. They just suck at it.

As we enter the Thanksgiving season, it’s a perfect time to tell you a story about Easter. It was 1996 and I took my then-GF Griffin camping out on San Juan Island. Easter Sunday broke with warmth and sun; I could sense the welcome glare burning blue through the tent fabric. Griffin was fast asleep, but I was awoken by the sun and by some strange sounds. I had to get up anyway to prepare the ultra-secret Easter basket I had prepared for Griffin, so I quietly slipped on my boots and exited the tent to see what all the clatter was about.

And there, high in the trees, were turkeys! They were gobbling and grunting and being all turkey-like. I was stunned. I walked up the path to the car and prepared the Easter basket.  On my way there, I saw the turkeys still in the trees, and I thought of Les Nessman. Les! You should have thrown them off a crane! They would have been fine!

I snuck back into the tent and snuggled up with Griffin. “Happy Easter, baby! I brought you a basket. And guess what? TURKEYS CAN FLY!”

She was all groggy, but the smell of jelly beans and chocolate bunnies brought her around in no time. We went outside to behold the majesty of nature: turkeys flapping and flying in the trees! Oh, the wonder! The thrill!

As you and yours prepare for Thanksgiving this year, be sure to remember that, as Ben Franklin once said, “I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad immoral character: like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.”

That’s right, America. We should be roasting eagles this year, not turkeys. This noble bird has swagger and pomp. It warbles and clucks all day long, even if no one is listening. It tends to be fat, and has a very small brain. The turkey, therefore, is all-American.

Happy Thankgiving.

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