BLACK FRIDAY

Last year on Thanksgiving, I was pulling a shift at Wal-Mart.  This year, hallelujah!, I will be at home.  Today's post is for the cashiers still standing in the registers this weekend...

Newbies, of course, work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.  Everybody works Black Friday - newbies, old-timers, and the Big Boss.  That is actually the only day out of the entire year that you will find ALL 23 registers open.  Pretty amazing.

Without fail - without fail - someone will come through the check-out line, pile their 14 tons of junk on the conveyor belt, look at the cashier with big sad puppy-dog eyes and sigh, "I just can't believe they make you guys work on Thanksgiving Day/Christmas/whatever.  That is so awful.  These big corporations, they're just so greedy to make another buck that they don't even care about their employees...blah, blah, blah,..."

The cashier will smile, nod, and - bleep! bleep! bleep! - continue ringing up the customer's order.

Every one of us behind a register gets this same comment from at least one holiday shopper (often from several).  And every one of us thinks, "Well, if you weren't here, lady, I wouldn't be here, either!  I'd be home with my family instead."  Those of us who are less sanctified think, "Cut the smarm, lady.  I'm not stupid enough to buy the load of poo-ey you're throwing."  The kinder-hearted cashiers probably think, "I appreciate your sympathy, but you're the reason I'm here - and you'd figure that out if you gave it half a second's thought."

We've all tried to come up with some kind of witty, unoffensive come-back.  Something to shake the customer out of their gooey sentimentality and back into reality.

I read something recently that went kinda like this:  "Only in America do we celebrate a national day of thankfulness, then go out the very next day and trample one another to death buying things we don't need with money we can't afford to spend."

Are you really and truly thankful this Thanksgiving?  Are you content with the portion God has given you?

Yes?

Want to prove it?

Stay home this holiday season and enjoy your family and friends.  Skip Wal-Mart.  And the mall.  And the on-line shopping.  In fact, just skip all those Black Friday sales.

I dare you.