CSotD: Go-go K-Mart!
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Amidst the predictable jokes about leftovers, and the equally predictable tee-hee-hee's over Black Friday shopping (Anyone going for the Trudy Trifecta? "Out at midnight, overdrew the checking account, crumpled the fender pulling into the garage afterwards"? Nobody? Maybe next year!) , some cartoonists have serious comments to make.
Like a lot of newspaper-based editorial cartoonists, Derf Backderf creates two editions of his "The City" strip, one that only runs in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, one that is also released nationally. This one was local but certainly didn't have to be:
And, while Derf's style is perfect for capturing the unreasonable, irrational morality of our wage-slave system, Norm Feuti's Retail is perfectly positioned to add the illogic of it all to the commentary:
Marla is right, of course. There's no more money out there, and whether you collect it in one day or over a span of two or three, you won't make it grow. And, meanwhile, you'll pay extra for utilities and staffing when you open on additional days, which actually diminishes your take.
But, as in the case of Sunday openings, it's not a case of how much is out there. It's a case of how much of what is out there you manage to capture. If your competition is open, you have little competitive choice.
And as Marla notes, you're handing out the bread and circuses that people want, however much they may tut-tut over lost holidays in the abstract.
When my now-40 son was about two, he had a friend next door the same age whose signature –and just about only — phrase was "Go-go K-Mart," which could be a question, as in "Are we?" or "Can we?" or a declaration, as in "We will!" and especially celebratory: "We are!"
We thought it was very funny at the time, but we were still young and I don't think realized just how typical his life was.
And the economy was better, even for those like us who were part of the just-starting-out demographic.
Some of us are still adjusting to diminished expectations in a diminished economy:
Arlo really is an elitist, dragging his idealistic values around as if they were actually a part of society, or ever really were.
We lost the culture wars, man. You should have gone back to the land back when land was cheap and you could still hoe a row of plants without having to take two Advil before and soak in ice after.
He's lucky he found Janis. She's just enough of a realist to keep him somewhat grounded without crushing his soul. Marla's wounded-but-accurate worldview would be too much for him.
Fact is, there's no revolt coming. You can't rally the troops when they can't even identify the players in this class war.
Someone was attacking Papa John's on Facebook the other day over the refusal to extend health care to employees, and vowing to boycott them in favor of dealing only with local companies.
Like Domino's.
I wish I had made that up, but I didn't.
We're all go-going to K-Mart in a handbasket. It's not just inevitable; it's patriotic.
As Marshall Ramsey points out, America is counting on us!
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