Danger Danger Black Friday

There are many days of the year I dislike – Valentine’s Day, any day dedicated to something trivial like talking like a pirate, dress like a carrot, learn to speak Romulan, open your curtains whilst upside down, PI day (yes I know I have ranted about it before but it annoys me, okay!)  - but there is one day of the year which makes me want rip the phone out of the wall, shoot all television screens, delete the internet and barricade all shops’ doors closed.

Yes, I hate Black Friday.

I have no problem with people going out in hordes to get huge discounts on luxury items – what people choose to spend their time and money doing is their business. I don’t do shopping at the best of times except for visiting the corner store for food and the off license for my whiskey, tequila and other spirits so Black Friday doesn’t really affect my shopping habits.

Five reasons that I hate Black Friday:

1. People spend a week phoning and asking whether I am offering discounts on my services over the Black Friday Weekend
2. Harry turns up at my door every single year with a catalogue in hand trying to convince me that I need a plasma screen TV, surround system and media centre.
3. When I am trying to follow people, the crowds, screaming, random outbreaks of violence and police presence make it very difficult for me to do my job.
4. Fred buys lots of things and then tries to give me lots of useless gifts.
5. My favourite weapons and ammunition specialist shops never seem to hold Black Friday sales.

The number of phone calls I have had this year alone have been enough for me to unplug my phone from the wall. Then when people started arriving at my office and demanding Black Friday discounts I had to chase them out of my office and even had to throw my phone out of the window after them.

When Harry turned up had I had to threaten to shoot him five times and shoot the catalogue out of his hand to make him leave.

Fred then turned up with only five gifts instead of the usual fifty. This year he had bought me a kettle to replace the one that Ryan borrowed and sold for drug money, a microwave to replace the one that exploded, a new phone to replace the one that was now lying down on the street in several hundred thousand pieces, an engraved cigarette case and a sofa bed.

So this year there was only one useless gift that Fred brought with him. When I asked him why the sofa bed, he said he was sick of sleeping on the broken lump of wood and padding that I called a sofa. I told him that he had his own bed in his own home that he could go home to quite easily but for some reason the sofa bed still made its way into my home and my old sofa ended up sharing the street with my phone.

Sometimes I think that Fred is far more manipulative than anyone gives him credit for.