Not Shopping!

Today is the most ridiculous day of the year in America. How did this start? If I were a conspiracy theorist (I'm not, but I'm a bit sleepy this morning because of the black helicopter that droned over the neighborhood all night--wait, maybe that was my snoring...), I would have good reason to believe that all of the retailers in the country got together every year right before Thanksgiving and started broadcasting subliminal, multi-media, thought-control messages that caused the masses to get up before daylight and stand shivering in lines at department stores in order to be there when the doors opened at 0600 (6 AM, for my civilian friends--wait, I don't have any civilian friends--never mind) so that they could race down the aisles and wrestle over a piece of merchandise produced in a slave labor camp in China, all of which would serve to increase the corporate bottom-line. It couldn't be that, though. That sounds too suspiciously like something out of an anarchist's manifesto. No, I'm just going to chalk the lunacy of this day up to mass hysteria induced by gullet-fermented turkey and dressing (there's an image for my civilian acquaintances--no civilian friends, remember...). Anyway, since I'm "no longer in uniform" ("retired" doesn't describe my current assignment) I am going to exercise my first civilian right--civil disobedience. I refuse to shop. I'm going fishing instead...