Rick's List
As I write this, it’s early Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and a look out the newsroom window reminds me of Frost’s beautifully melancholic lines about November: “My Sorrow / When she’s here with me / Thinks these dark days of autumn rain / Are beautiful as days can be.”
Then I click on my inbox and am greeted by one of dozens of daily emails that has absolutely nothing to do with my life or what I do for a living or what I’m interested in or that provides information enriching my life in any way.
Maybe that’s the problem with Black Friday shopping: It’s aimed at people buying toys and electronic gaming devices and other typically shiny and fun “presents” as opposed to gas-measurers!
Of course, as you read this, Black Friday is over for eight more months. But, going forward, here are a few other businesses I hope will consider opening early to offer Black Friday bargains in the future. 1 Santa’s Gum-Tissue Graft Special — Less than two hours after you inhale that last piece of Turkey Day pecan pie, you can be harnessed into a dental chair for a holiday-priced procedure in which the oral surgeon will harvest tender slices of tissue from the roof of your mouth and fuse it onto the rot-damaged area where you used to have gums. Twinkling Lights Bush2master XM15-E2S Rifle — Yep! At Corky’s Discount Guns & Bombs, on Black Friday only, pick up this high-speed flesh-chewer of a weapon adorned with festive Christmas lights and a glossy, peppermint stick finish! 3 Grim Reaper Says Ho Ho Ho — For some reason, a lot of folks die during the holidays. Don’t be caught unprepared. Starting at 4 p.m. Thansgiving Day, the Silver Leaves Cemetery and Crematorium offers big discounts on burial plots. Drop by our graveyard — lit with luminaries and featuring singers belting out cheery carols — and find that delicious spot for eternal rest. 4 Koogler’s Gas Measurers — Opening at dawn on Black Friday, this 55,000-square-foot warehouse, full of different devices measuring any type of gas including Diborane, Halocarbon 134-A and even Phosgine, boasts a five-percent blanket discount on any purchase.
Black Friday has meaning at last.