"Everyday is Black Friday for me"

 Take #1

                The official color of New York City is black. People here wear black in winter, black in spring, summer, and fall. See these pictures? This represents 90% of everyone walking the streets. Oh yes, there are the non-conformists, the “rebels” that just have to wear “brown” or even “gray”.  And there are the people that didn’t get the memo, probably new to the city and they will wear a red winter coat or a blue but this is a mono chromatic city.

                The question is why? My theory is this: since the goal is to NOT stand out when walking around the best way to do that is to NOT stand out. Not standing out means that people ignore you, which is the goal. At the most they will barely acknowledge you since they have to share the sidewalk with you but that’s all they want to do and that’s all you want them to do. 

                It’s like those scenes in Science Fiction movies where some alien force has taken over human bodies but don’t want to be found out having done that, so in public they all walk around ignoring each other, disembodied bodies in motion. It took me some time to get used to this. I had to get rid of some of my clothes, and replace them with black or dark blue. Took a while but I finally was able to officially become a fully disembodied, featureless, drab, Manhattan street walker just like 6 million others. How cool is that!?!

    Take #2           

                If I hear one more Black Friday commercial state the lie: “Oh what a savings”! One commercial playing here shows two neighbors (men) comparing Black Friday deals and one guy ( meant to be the loser) gets packages out of his trunk and his neighbor says to him, “Oh, Black Friday, how did you do”? And the guy says, “Great, I got up early and saved hundreds of dollars”. “How did you do”? The guy (meant to be seen as the winner) was waiting for that question so he could fling his smug, know it all, smart-ass comment back at him by saying, “I slept in and ended up saving thousands”. How did he do that? He did it by buying a Buick Lacrosse, now a shiny new black car in his driveway.

                The whole point is, “winners” like this guy (I’d like to punch him right in the face) save thousands because they are smart, with it, hipsters and the other 99% of  the guys are “okay” but not as smart, not as with it, and not as “hip”. They take their hundreds and feel stupid. The message to that 99% of men is if you want to be cool, and gloat over our neighbors is run down and buy a 38K automobile for 36.5K. I hate all these Darwinian themed ads where it’s guy vs. guy or woman vs. woman, playing up insecurities and fears.

                BUT what I hate even more is the fact that this commercial (there are oodles more just like them) promotes the big lie. The big lie is this: “you are saving money”. You are not saving money, you are SPENDING money. Saving money is when your bank account goes up not down.  Let me test my theory: I want you to write me a check for 50.00 and send it to me. I will send you a CD of the pictures I took at the Parade. I’ll send them to you for 50.00 and trust me you are saving money. Because it's Black Friday I am giving you a great deal. You are saving lots of money so start writing me that check.

Look, buying something involves spending money not saving money. I mean if I want to buy something, I just spend the money and get it. That’s my decision and I’m okay with that. I just want these calculated, smarmy companies to stop trying to sweet talk me into thinking that me spending my money is me saving my money. These commercials tick me off.

 BUT then, I tell myself, "let it go Will, just let it go" at least you get to wear black every day of your life.