Good-bye Black Friday, Hello Poorhouse Saturday

Well, now that we've all had a chance to digest our Thanksgiving meal (at least most of it) and wasted all our energy over the weekend trying to grab one of those $2 waffle makers from Walmart without being pepper-sprayed, it's time to wonder what other horrors lie ahead for us during the rest of the Christmas shopping season.

But instead of just attempting  to spell it out for you in all its naked unadulterated gruesomeness, thought I'd do it in a manner that keeps to the spirit of the holiday; so if you don't mind, here is my own special Christmas song...

Carol Of the Bills

(sung to the tune of "Carol Of the Bells")

(verse the first)

Ding... Dong!... Ding... Dong!...

Ding... Dong!... Ding... Dong!...

Now that the Christmas season is here

Finish your shopping, be of good cheer.

All the stores were open at 12 A.M.

You walked in to spend all that you can.

Thought I could save running all around,
Only to find my Internet is down.

Dozens of those, armfuls of these.

Just make damn sure they're not Chinese.

Use whatever payment method is best,

MasterCard, Discover, American Express.

I-Phone for Susie, Xbox for Timmy.

All you ever hear is "Gimme, gimme, gimme!"

"Gimme, gimme, gimme that for Christmas!"

"Gimme, gimme, gimme that for Christmas!"

Here come the bills, now I have to pay.

They couldn't wait 'til after Christmas day.

I've had it up -- to about here.

Already dreading Christmas next year.

Ding dong ding... dong...

(verse the second)

Ding... Dong!... Ding... Dong!...

Ding... Dong!... Ding... Dong!...

Now comes the fun, wrapping all of it.

Just cut my finger, bleeding won't quit.

Don't think I'll finish, I'm very tired.

Just read the words "ASSEMBLY REQUIRED."

Late Christmas Eve, I'm in a fog.

Oh, just remembered! Nothing for the dog!

No stores are open -- I'm in a mess.

Wait just a moment, there's a CVS!

They're about to close. Make a mad dash!

Eighty dollar chew toy, I'm all out of cash.

By 10 A.M. it'll be in pieces.

Oh, what the hell, put it on the Visa.

Put it, put it, put it on the Visa.

Put it, put it, put it on the Visa.

Christmas has left me deep in the hole

I'd rather be at the South Pole.

I'm tired of being Santa's chief elf.

Think I'll just go buy something for my own damn self.

Ding dong, ding...

"I'm sorry sir, your card has been declined. But have a Happy Christmas anyway!"

Happy holiday shopping, everyone!

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Ten Commandments For The Twenty-First Century

I got to thinking the other day (always a dangerous thing for me, since usually when I do it, something ends up getting broken), that our world and our lives are so different from the world people knew 3000 years ago when the Ten Commandments were first given;  and I think that most people would agree that it's sometimes difficult to relate what we see happening around us to how those sacred words apply these days.  So  maybe it's time we tried to do a little revising of them, or at least make them more relevant to our world in the year 2011.

With that in mind,  I took it upon myself to try and do a little updating to see if the commandments might not be a little more relelvant to our world today and came up with:

Ten Commandments For The Twenty-First Century

1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before Me – this includeth anyone named Limbaugh, Beck, Cowell,  Oprah or Bieber. (Note: the only exclusion to this proscription is the use of the phrase “Clapton is God”  – if you look at my CD collection, he still is.)

2. Thou shall not make for thyself any graven image (I guess that means that this is the end of the line for that Merrill Lynch bull  -- I mean the one traipsing down Wall Street.)

3. Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. (Hooray! – Something that will finally forceth Joe Biden to keepeth his mouth shut!)

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy – the one exception being the first Sabbath in February where two football teams shall commence combat at a neutral site while millions sit at home and imbibeth their favorite beverage, cheereth wildly and throweth things at their widescreen TVs. (In other words, it's Super Bowl Sunday -- knock your socks off!)

5. Honor thy father and thy mother – unless of course, thy last name happens to be Sheen, Lohan or Kardashian – in that case then, there is no amount of DIShonor that one cannot bring upon thy father and thy mother.

6. Thou shall not murder.  -- Heareth and remembereth, oh George W. Bush, for that's what we heard thee do to the English language for eight years.

7. Thou shall not commit adultery. (Gee, Charlie Sheen hath made it into TWO references on this list!)

8.“Thou shall not steal” shall be forthwith rewritten as “Thou shall not pull a Bernie, ” as in "Madoff." This supersedeth a previous revision of this commandment which would have been operative at the beginning of the century, “Thou shall not pull an Enron.”

9. Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor – unless thy neighbor is bearing false witness against thee, in which case the applicable procedure is to follow the dictum “Do unto others – then get out of town.”

10.Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house or thy neighbor's wife, nor anything that is thy neighbor's; in addition, thou shall not flash thyself, expose thyself or touch thyself inappropriately, nor make lewd and lascivious remarks while standing out in thy front yard coveting thy neighbor's wife. (I guess sending lewd cell phone pictures of yourself would also be covered by this one, but only if you're a member of Congress.)

Well, I figure by now, Charlton Heston is probably rolling over in his grave. I'm just glad I won't be around to write one of these for the twenty-second century. I hate to think of what I'd have to come up with then.

EXTRA:

A few days ago I emailed some of you a list of submissions I'd made to this weeks' David Letterman online Top Ten list, “Top Ten Signs The World's Population Is Too Large,” and I told you I'd let you know if any of my submissions made it.

Sad to say, none of my submissions were included on the list (although I have had one used in the past). You can go here to see the ones that did make this week's list:

http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/top_ten/contest.php

But since I thought I came up with some pretty good ones, I'm posting them here for your perusal. (BTW, I made one change after I sent my list out, since I submitted another entry that I thought was better than one I submitted originally).

TOP TEN SIGNS THE EARTH’S POPULATION IS GETTING TOO LARGE

10. Martha Stewart now opens her show with a regular cooking segment on how to prepare a gourmet meal for 500,000

9. Travel agents are starting to call Antarctica “That Getaway Place”

8. Brad and Angelina have just adopted the entire nation of Kenya

7. The number of Republicans running for President in the year 2024 is now estimated to be 10 million

6. Jesus returns to feed the multitude and discovers that this time, five loaves and two fishes just won’t do it

5. Chris Christie can't get a seat at the Hometown Buffet

4. Level of the world's oceans drops every time 40 million toilets are flushed simultaneously

3. Concerns about global warming have been replaced by concerns about global sweating

2. At this point, there are almost as many people as there are hairs on Donald Trump’s head

AND THE NUMBER ONE SIGN THE EARTH’S POPULATION IS TOO LARGE…

Sarah Palin can see 7 billion people from her house

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"Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength."

-- Thomas Pynchon