If this doesn’t take away whatever may be left of your faith in humanity, nothing will.

A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday after an “out of control” throng of shoppers eager for post-Thanksgiving bargains broke down the doors at a suburban store and knocked him to the ground, police said.

At least four other people, including a woman eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

…

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help the man were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Witnesses said that even as the worker lay on the ground, shoppers streamed into the store, stepping over him.

One person bumping into another…that happens.

One of said people taking a tumble…that also happens.

The person who fell getting trampled to death by a savage horde of materialism zombies eager to spend spend spendspendSPEND!!!!…no.  No fracking way.  Not in any civilization that I want to be part of.  Unfortunately I don’t see any way to vote with my feet on this one, since America, while importing everything else so that our trade deficit kind of looks like our national deficit, has managed to balance things up nicely if you figure in consumerism and materialism as exports.  So, as we’ve gone, the rest of the world will be following shortly.

If you read the full article, it says the guy was a temp–probably picking up some extra work to buy Fluffy McRufflepants the Flying Dinosaur or Suzie the Doll that Poos Real Poo or whatever the stupid overpriced toy of the year is for his spawn, or else expensive jewelry for his lady friend.  Or I’m wrong and he was using the opportunity to get a few bucks to make rent in the economic clusterfrack created by the real estate market being unable to support that many not-even-interest home loans.  Either way, materialism at its finest has given this worker’s family a funeral for Christmas.

Scrooge was onto something, referring to the festivities of Christmas as “humbug,” which, loosely translated, means “BS.”  I would say that for people to trample someone to death in order to go shopping, to put a human life’s value below that of stuff, qualifies as BS.  So, bah humbug to all, and to all a good right.

Technically, I stayed home.  However, because I had a turkey TV dinner and my cats split a can of ground turkey and giblets cat food, and because two of the cats have been in the family for three feline generations, I can legitimately say that I had turkey dinner with my family.  This is good in case anyone asks because it’s hard to fake a perfect life while saying you spent a holiday on your own.  I mean, a real holiday that people celebrate, not Presidents’ Day or something.

The cats behaved well and enjoyed the treat.  Today they seemed to be asking for more; they were sniffing at the bowls I fed them in and meowing at me.  No, you little beggars, that was a special occasion, you’ve got plenty of kitty kibble.   Squirrel’s been letting me pet her more lately–the day before yesterday she even walked onto my lap with all four paws.  That kitten may turn out cuddly yet.

There was no TV watching as the TV is still not hooked up (still haven’t scraped together the $300 deposit).  This is for the best as I’m sure Christmas toy ads have become insanely obnoxious, and I get to miss them this year.  Hooray!

Happy pi day!

News for the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008:

At 2:55 there will be 142 days left until school’s out.  Yes, I have a countdown.

The top-voted Darwin Award winner for 2007 was actually two people who fell to their doom while getting it on on a roof.  If only natural selection would hurry up and weed out more idiots so that nice smart guys would be able to find me.

My skitty-kitty, Squirrel, is becoming much friendlier lately.  With purring and everything.  As a result of Operation Cuddly Squirrel, I may soon have a formerly-skitty kitty on my hands.  After having her for a year and a half, it’s about time!

I’m thankful for my family, who raised me with values about what’s important in life so that I didn’t turn out to be a wannabe Child of iPrivilege (not a typo).

I’m thankful that some of my students are really nice kids.

I’m thankful that I work with such nice people that I had two Thanksgiving invitations to juggle as well as enough leftovers sent home with me that I haven’t had to cook all day.

I’m thankful that if I had to cook today, I’ve got stuff on the shelves and money in the bank so that I can get whatever I need.

I’m thankful that I have a job that I don’t hate, that pays the bills and gives me a way to help people.

I’m thankful that I live in a country where I, as a woman, am free to have that job, to own what I earn from it, to vote, to write this blog, to live on my own, to drive a car, and to be a friend to a few of the people in line to keep it that way.  I’m especially thankful for those friends.

I’m thankful that my brain cells and wacky hobbies let me make myself useful, for example to another friend just a little while ago, even if it takes a while for stuff to work.

I’m thankful that I’m healthy, my cats are healthy, insurance is about to make my teeth healthy (over time, of course, because these things take time), and life is generally OK.

It’s not just a 30% off sale, folks. Go thank a vet.

It’s too early to make this post. It’s also too early for this post to be necessary, which is the problem; I think I have to stop reading the news and shopping. I’ll do an upgrade-and-repost two months from now, maybe.

Overcommercialized Christmas is a given. My main childhood Christmas tradition was three hours of frantic shopping on Christmas Eve, another one of wrapping (once one is allowed to do one’s own wrapping, which was a lot older than it should’ve been because it took Mom that long to give up on wanting everything perfect), and half an hour of unwrapping on Christmas morning. One of my more vivid Christmas-related memories is a Christmas list my sister started in September and kept adding to. I’m tempted to say I didn’t pick up on the emphasis on “stuff” to the same degree because of being a kid, but even so, it seems like it’s getting worse.

I stopped caring much about Christmas when I was 12 or 13. My parents were having Problems and my dad wasn’t around that day; I’m not sure where he went. Probably somewhere with friends from work. I get it, my mom was a more serious pain to be around than usual during that time, and he was raising the bar on parenting compared to previous generations, but it still torpedoed Christmas for us kids. Would that have happened if the people involved were focused on making Christmas a nice time for each other, rather than getting stuff and impressing others with how much stuff they buy? Probably not, I think.

My good Christmas memories rarely involve shopping. Snow was good, when it applied. The few that involved spending money in any direction were things like the card exchange last year, in which we all had would have had to buy stamps and either cards or the stuff to make cards but shopping wasn’t the point, and the giving tree at Chemeketa (in which some of us spoiled other students’ kids).

And yet, people can’t seem to figure it out, to the point where it’s worth it for stores to have “holiday price wars,” some people don’t think twice about whether they need “Christmas loans,” and last year’s Christmas spending predictions came in at numbers such as $795.86 and $907 per person.

When I read the holiday price wars article, I was ready to boycott Wal-Mart. Two things stopped me. The most obvious is, I already don’t shop at Volde-Mart, but I think the other is more important: they wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work. They’re trying to get into people’s wallets, which wouldn’t work if people weren’t willing to get that wallet out. $800-$900 per person for Christmas shopping can’t all be at Wal-Mart anyway.

So, instead, maybe I’ll boycott people.

Staples has a display of Christmas cards and festive printer paper.  All I can say is UGH!!!  It’s…not…even…October!  This is why Christmas bugs me; not only is the meaning buried in commercialism, but the commercialism starts more than three months early.