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[This is a satiral essay I did as an eleventh grade English class assignment.] Many things are characterized by the color black. Such things are usually negative. For example, the Black snakes, the Black Widow spider, Black spot (a plant disease), blackball, and the Black Plague. Of course, there are many others, and just within recent years, Americans have termed the phrase "Black Friday" to a dreadful date of the household calendar. No, this isn't another type of Easter holiday like Good Friday. This has very little to do with anything pleasant (I never knew what was so good about Good Friday, anyway). Yes, I'm talking about the day which once a year stikes the healthy, wealthy, and wise (sometimes the sick, poor, and stupid, too). Yes, yes, yes, this is the great day which affects almost all of mankind: the day after Thanksgiving when the Christmas shopping season starts with a big bang. This is termed Black Friday not only because it is so detrimental to Americans' bank accounts, but also because it is the time of year when stores' accounts come out of the red and go into the black. This day (the fourth Friday in November) is known by the familiar symptoms of pushing and shoving, nerves at a high stress level, discourteous people, aching feet, and heaping shopping bags dangling from slouched shoulders. I think this day is only for the fun of seeing just how many people can fit into a shopping mall. If you're into robbing stores, today might be a good day to perform your acts; or would it--the stores also like to stock up on policemen on this great "holiday", so maybe it would be better to rob a bank on this day, while all the cops are in the shopping center (just make sure the bank you hold up isn't in the shopping mall too). I think it is interesting that you see almost no one throwing coins into the fountains on Black Friday. The shoppers don't have even a penny to spare. You'd think someone would throw in a penny and wish for more money. No, it would probably just fly back out and hit them in the eye or something. Black Friday is the day when you have to wait in line for everything: the checkout counter, the restaurants, the escalators and elevators, the rest rooms, and even the little seats in the mall (the ones surrounded by those cheap artificial plants). Oh, I almost forgot--even before you get in the mall, you'll probably have to walk at least five miles unless you come before seven in the morning to get a good parking place. Alot of people do--they arrive before dawn and light up their portable grills on the parking lot for a great ham and egg breakfast. But after it's all over, you'll be so relieved, won't you?
The problem is, it never is over. When ten o'clock p.m. rolls around and all the metal gates descend to the floor and the latches lock in harmony, you quickly head for the exit door, so glad that it's all over. Sorry, but the only thing that's over is the charge receipts all over your floor at home. Are there any ways to avoid this day of distress? Not really. You might try mail orders. You can order about anything from cheese to crafts to vitamins to kitchen sinks to butter knives--anything under the sun (or moon, if it's night), right through the mail. You'll probably have to send it back three or four times before you get what you ordered in the first place though. So, if you're going to try ordering through the mail for Christmas, make sure you place your order three years before the Christmas you want to give it (and don't forget to "allow six to eight weeks for each delivery"). When you do buy gifts on Black Friday, try to avoid gifts that don't last. Suuuuure! You can't buy such a thing. Almost everything you can buy will be obsolte within just one year. If it's not obsolete, it'll be worn out by then. The batteries will explode, or your dog will bury it in the yard somewhere, or something like that. Truthfully, of the gifts you received last year, how many do you still use? And don't worry about warranties. They're just to tell you when you can expect the item to wear out. It's the old law of warranties: "LIFE EXPECTANCY = WARRANTY + 1 WEEK". Everything wears out anywhere from one day to one week after the warranty expires. If by some remote chance it would break before the warranty expires, it'll get lost in the mail when you send it back, or at least that's what the company will say. From now on, avoid Black Friday by giving a gift that will last forever: Leprosy or Herpes, or something like that. "This Christmas, reach out and touch someone in a different way: give Herpes--the gift that keeps on giving (It even has a lifetime guarantee).
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