From TMV’s favorite poet, Michael Silverstein, aka Wall Street Poet:
For most Americans the big day this week is Thanksgiving. For retailers and economists, however, it’s the day after Thanksgiving. This is “Black Friday,” the biggest shopping day of the year, the day retailers hope to get into the black, the harbinger of overall holiday sales. This sonnet is a paean (of sorts) to this retailing rite.
A Black Friday Sonnet
Just as the waves rush to a pebbled shore,
We on Black Fridays drive off to the malls;
Well prepped all spending limits to ignore,
Intent on making perfect gifting hauls.
Retail ads, seek needs and wants to mingle,
So they are one, as we go shop to shop;
If Black Friday registers don’t jingle,
Store owners know their profits will go plop.
In the end, it all comes down to plastic,
A willingness to bear a bigger debt;
Card credit is endlessly elastic,
As long as shoppers do not fear nor fret.
Too thrifty buyers could spawn great sorrow:
So head for Wal-Mart, spend big and borrow.
©2005 Michael Silverstein
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.