You Greedy Piglets

© 2008 Stan Spire


Bloated. Sitting on your couch, half-hypnotized by the TeeVee. You’re tired, unmotivated. That’s the way The Elitists want you most of the time: indifferent, unaware, but still pliable.

But you can’t loaf around all the time, mired in your abode. This is the time of the year that the Elitists (the Boss Hogs) want you and the other piglets to support their elegant lifestyle, Olympic swimming pools and private jets. It’s time to get you motivated, focused on their goals.

The TeeVee shouts: Big Sales! Grab the Bargains! Don’t Miss Out!

The Elitists appeal to your greedy piglet brain. You stir, ad after ad rousing you into a state of tremendous anticipation. You could enjoy an extra day off from work after the Thanksgiving holiday – but no! You have to get that One Perfect Xmas gift for a loved one. And at a low price. The race is on!

It’s called Black Friday because it helps the stores push their yearly sales up high, great profits. Only black, not red, ink is tolerated. Lots of black ink.

Black Friday also refers to the darkness of people’s souls. Whipped into a frenzy, the materialistic piglets allow their baser emotions to rule. The Elitists sit back and laugh, safe in their comfortable mansions, amused that their manipulations have once again succeeded.

One Xmas parents could only prove their love by buying their offspring a Tickle-Me Elmo doll. Adults acted like bratty kids in the store, pushing each other, to grab that One Perfect Xmas Gift.

Six months later I walked through a Wal-Mart and noticed a display of Tickle-Me Elmo dolls stacked up to the ceiling. People walked by. No one was excited. Yesterday’s news.

But you can’t wait for summer. You have to buy that One Perfect Gift NOW! Set the alarm clock and get up early. Show up at the store in the cold darkness, squeeze in, claiming your spot as part of the growing human tsunami.

You and your fellow beastlings herd outside the locked doors. The handmade sign proclaims: BLITZ LINE STARTS HERE. Pressing, pressing, ready to bolt and grab the bargains inside. At the split second the store swings open its gates, you storm into the retail fortress. Nothing can stand before the stampede. The quick or the dead.

And that’s how you trampled to death a Wal-Mart employee at a Long Island store on Black Friday, 2008.