Black Friday and Divorce Court

Did you go shopping on Black Friday? I was determined to avoid the insanity at the shopping malls on this, the busiest shopping day of the year. I did, for reasons I won't go into, did end up having to go to an electronics store in search of an emergency item. The store, of course, didn't have what I needed. But then I spotted a couple of CDs on sale. I picked them up and headed for the checkout area where I spotted a long line with a befuddled-looking teenage cashier trying to cope with the job. I laid the CDs down and left the building. Argh! The traffic was bad but the drivers were worse. The lack of civility in society is a peeve of mine and so being exposed to rude drivers tends to shorten my life with toxins pumped into my system. I try to be Buddha-like and go with the flow but when jerks in autos do their jerk things I just want to strangle them. But all I succeed in doing is making myself upset because roadways are not conducive to chasing down jerks and strangling them.

That's why I keep an Enya cassette tape handy for calming on days like Black Friday. So today, as I idled in line watching jerks speed down a closed lane and nose into line ahead of those of us who get in lines I was glad I had Enya there with me. Oh, happy holidays.

Then I stopped in SuperCuts for a haircut. I was third in line and there was nothing to read while I waited. The women who were cutting hair had a TV blaring with a program I later learned was called Divorce Court. A series of the most irritating, inarticulate people were screaming and crying on this horrid show. The "judge" hearing their cases was almost as irritating as the fools that had placed themselves on national television to air their most embarrassing problems. I couldn't shut it out, the TV was turned up high. The women in the shop were eating it up. The men who were waiting were rolling their eyes or tightening their jaws. I contemplated leaving without my haircut but I stuck this one out. I vowed that next time I'd bring my portable cassette player and Enya cassette with me to the barbershop.