Members of the horde, thy saint’s holy day draws near. Are you prepared to do battle? Have you girded your loins and cleared off room on your credit cards and readied yourself for the thrill of plunging into the melee in hopes that you will return home victorious and bearing the spoils of war?
This year, how about not?
Not massing in dark, cold parking lots. Not throwing yourself into the fray in the aisles of a big-box store. Not poring over ads to see which battleground offers the spoils (in limited quantities!) which appeal the most to your barbarian spirit. Not going out and standing shoulder to shoulder with a crowd of other people, some of whom may be carrying the one foe the devotees of St. Conan should fear even more than rising credit card interest rates: Plague.
I admit, I was annoyed as hell when Black Friday ads started filling up my inbox the day after Halloween. Shop online! Sale starts now! Shop early! they exhorted, and I growled while eating leftover candy and deleting them with extreme prejudice. But in this case, the siren-song of Mammon should perhaps be heeded. Shop online or shop early, so you aren’t outside in the cold exposing yourself to socially-undistanced crowds of people with dubious hygiene practices. Because your fighting skills, even with the extra armor of masks and visors and hand sanitizer in creepy-cute purse-sized bottles, are useless against the invisible arrows of a virus that thrives in large groups of people.
This is not a battle you can win, for even if this enemy’s arrows miss you he may still follow you home and shoot them at your family. The lives of your loved ones are not a sacrifice St. Conan will look on with favor. So stay home. None will fault your courage for refusing to join the horde this year – not even your patron saint himself. Keep his holy feast day of from within the protecting walls of your dwelling, teach your children his litany that they might someday follow you into battle, and let the tales of Black Fridays past flow joyfully as you raise your glass in the name of St. Conan and pledge to stand with the horde another day.
To assist with your feast, if you don’t just want to continue it through from the previous day’s celebration, here is a recipe for cooking beef barbarian style or for the more ambitious there exists a cookbook fit for a warlord.
If you want to know which stores are in the foul service of Mammon and opening on the day they shouldn’t be (Build-A-Bear, fucking really?!), this year they’ve put all the holiday openings, closings, and online sale info into one handy chart.
 “Oh Saint Conan, Patron of Black Friday Shoppers, grant us your blessing on this, your feast day. Cover us with audacity, remove our fear of consequences. Your hand be upon us as we dash the hopes and spill the blood of our adversaries, that we might emerge victorious and bear home our spoils in triumph. And curse those who would best us on the field of consumer battle; may their credit card interest be a burden to them for all the days of their lives. By the shadow of your sword which falls upon us, amen.” |