Don’t Shop, Stay Home and Read

Retail Survivors Unite

I worked in retail in some form or another, since I was sixteen years old. I was unceremoniously laid off on the first day of lockdown in 2020, on my ninth wedding anniversary, when I was 49. So a Jesus life in retail. And on Black Friday, it felt like getting scourged. When I worked the counter, Black Friday wasn’t really a thing yet, but the Cabbage Patch Kids phenomenon was ramping it up. Christmas Eve was the biggest shopping day at Washington Pharmacy, which like many local drug stores, had a gift shop, greeting cards, and Russell Stover candies two aisles over from the Sitz Bath butt washers and “neck massagers,”¹ aka vibrators. I quickly become accustomed to the savagery of the American consumer, and learned how to wrap gifts, ring up orders, answer the phone, and shove the waste basket under puking kids while under fire.

My first I.T. job was for Target, supporting their bridal registry scanners and gift certificate machines (this was before gift cards proliferated). I wasn’t in the store, but I felt the duress that Guest Services was under as we assisted them over the phone. From there, I went to a credit card authorizer, then to the port where the terminal became clogged with ships lugging cheap goods from overseas, and trucks trying to get containers moving. And then, to a “fast fashion” clothing retailer who took part in the vile practice of opening on Thanksgiving Day. I’m not going to debate the holiday itself, but let people friggin’ eat with their families, already. I worked on the back end, software that kept stores stocked and processed the receipts, so I was on call, and at least twice, I had to run in to replace hardware an hour before Thanksgiving dinner was served. They canned me during lockdown, when I was going in every day to service a backup generator on the roof (lots of fun in January weather) and on the same day I called out because my uncle died of Covid.

Simon Properties Group is probably no worse than any other mall conglomerate, so I don’t shop on Black Friday. Or go to malls or outlets in general, unless I have to. My local REI is at a strip mall, and as a Subaru owner I am legally obligated to refill my car’s granola dispensers there. And this year, Record Store Day is on Black Friday, so I swung over to my local record shop, Sky Valley Records, to spend some money.

But I didn’t like it.

I’ll let two other writers talk about the holiday. Chris La Tray writes something heartfelt and poignant as always, and shares one hell of a poem today:

You Have to Remember

And Lauren Hough has a great essay in the New York Times (hell, yeah!) about going to gay bars on Thanksgiving in the wake of the latest terrorist attack. And she writes about having to write it, as well.

Happy Thanksgiving

This Sunday, paid subscribers will get “Deadbeat,” a short story about ironworkers on high steel, which was chosen as a Distinguished Mystery Story of 2017 by Louise Penny. It was printed in Down & Out Magazine, and in my collection Life During Wartime, but has never been published online.

1. Called such because on the packaging, women were always holding them against their necks, which is about as far from where they are used as you can get.