Friday, November 24, 2006
A little Black Friday envy
As mentioned previously, I have an employer who believes business should go on the day after Thanksgiving, even if you’re not in retail. Really, how many people are going to be concerned with financial services when there are so many sales going on?
Speaking of sales, I have a tiny bit of Black Friday envy. A couple of coworkers came in saying they braved the crowds before coming in to work and came away with some great goodies. One lady said Target had 42” plasma TVs for $800, so she picked up 3 of them. (Three? Can I have one??) There were also portable DVD players for $50 each so she got one for each of her kids. She has 4 of them. Geez it much be nice to have $2600 in spare cash laying around.
Sniff. I love gadgets. I’m a geek for cryin’ out loud, I should have every cool gadget available! But no, I’m also a tightwad. Realistically, even if I did have the spare cash, I wouldn’t be keeping up with the latest technology. Still, it’s a little sad to be sooo far behind.
On a different note, to demonstrate how far under the rock I often live, do you know why it’s called Black Friday? I didn’t even know the day after Thanksgiving was called Black Friday until last year. And then for a long time I couldn’t figure out why. Did someone die? Are we supposed to memorialize the countless turkeys that died for our holiday the next day? I mean, doesn’t Black Friday sound like “a black mark in history” or something? I had to break down and finally ask someone what it meant. When you’re this dense, pride does you no favors.
On the off chance that there are any others out there who are still clueless about what it means, I’ll tell you. Supposedly stores run with negative profits all year long, so they’re in the red. The day after Thanksgiving is when they finally make enough volume in sales to be profitable, putting their books into the black. Thus the name, Black Friday. I still say it sounds morbid. I don’t think I’m way off base though. I mean, how many people get trampled every year on that day, hmm?
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Categories: • Grrrrrr... • Thinking aloud