Proportional Response

"I laugh at your barbarous ways."

-Un Stéreôtyppe Française

Can we go just one holiday season without any Christmas shopping injuries? Like for real? Yes, I understand that a lot of Black Friday hype is exaggerated by the media, but I don't think it's too much to ask that we have 0 shopping-related fatalities ever. We're not climbing Everest, it's just shopping. Let's all take it down a notch. This is why all of the other countries laugh at us. Countries, I might add, who have never in their history played golf on the moon, single-handedly defeated the Nazis or blown up an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. All things we've totally done. Suck on that, rest of the world.

Here, let me set the scene for you: it's the night before Black Friday, and shoppers in San Antonio Texas are lined up at Sears to buy outdoor furniture and dishwashers at exactly the same price they would pay online but they're doing it at midnight and wearing pajamas because...uh...I don't know, we have screwed up priorities.

"Hey what's up? Huh? Yeah, I'm waiting in line at Sears for the
Black Friday Sale. The inter-wha-? The internet? No, never heard of it..."

-The Guy on his cellphone

"Oh beautiful, for spacious skies..."

Then the unthinkable happened: someone cut in line. Yeah. Look, I'm not being flippant here, that is some serious bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I think these people are all idiots for queuing up at Sears when they should be home drinking, but no one deserves to be cut in line. As Americans, we have our differences: religion, politics, the proper pronunciation of 'often' (the 't' is silent, so knock it off). But the one thing we all have in common is the universal and tacit understanding that you will wait your goddamn turn in line.

Hanes Her Way socks for $8: Worth
dying for? No. Killing for? Absolutely.

So it should come as no surprise that people were upset. There was shouting and name-calling; both appropriate responses to a violation of the social contract. But do you know what Cutsy McGee did then? He punched some guy. What the hell, right? But it gets worse: the guy he punched pulled a gun. Because that's what you do. Weighing the prospect of deep-discounts on name-brand appliances against the possibility of getting shot, the line-cutter and people he cut scattered and no one was hurt but still, wow. And get this, the guy with the gun has a permit to carry a concealed weapon so no charges were filed because Texas.

I know I'm a pretty limp-wristed liberal and all, but does anyone else think it's screwed up that you can wave a gun around a crowded mall as long as you have a license? Yeah, he got punched and that sucks but whatever happened to telling a grown-up? Like, call security or the cops, why is threat of death option #1?

"Take your fucking hands off that Kenmore® top loader."