Deal or no deal?

Lest all the uncommercialised purity of Thanksgiving should start a dangerous trend, the stores have devised a cunning scheme to get everyone back out spending as quickly as possible. It's called Black Friday. Basically it's a massive sale day with the best bargains available between four (that's four) and ten in the morning - almost before the tofurky and pies have had a chance to settle. I gather it is quite a bun fight. The most determined shoppers hunt in packs, communicating with walkie-talkies.

Not much of a shopper at the best of times, I let the day slip by without spending so much as a cent. This will do nothing to bolster the US economy, which according to the media is heading for a big recession. It certainly will be if people decide to believe what they read and hear in the media. Then the media will no doubt feel vindicated in having propagated such an accurate self-fulfilling prophecy. Even National Public Radio has been pushing the message, subliminally, delivering the latest gloomy news from the Stock Exchange over a subtle piano version of Stormy Weather.

One of the Girl's classmates rang to see if she was free, and we ended up all meeting for a walk at Five Rivers ('the most boring place in the world' groaned the Girl. Guess what, we had fun there LIKE WE ALWAYS DO!!). Then we moved on to the friend's house where the grown-ups drank tea and talked politics and parenthood while the kids set about sorting through a gazillion Pokemon cards.