They call it Boxing Day, but in these conservative times perhaps the annual festival of consumerism should be renamed Ultimate Fighting Day. Oh, we're all polite enough, crammed together in malls air-conditioned to the freezing point, bumping and jostling with strained smiles that don't touch the eyes, but how we all wish we had the stores to ourselves.
Hours later we escape, bags laden with half-price treasures that we'll cherish for a year or two or five if we've made a particularly good choice. We collapse exhausted by the binge, bloated with luxury, sated for another year. But the cravings will return, dooming us all.
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Strangely, my own experiences this year have been exactly the opposite: the afternoon of Xmas Eve, a woman confronting someone at the Safeway who had brazenly snuck into the self-checkout line ahead of almost a dozen people was told, "TAKE YOUR F*****G HANDS OFFA ME OR I'M GONNA CHARGE YOU WITH ASSAULT", while the blue collar dudes near the front of the line at Visions at 5:00 am invited someone whose truck was there before them to go to the front of the line.
I'm really not too sure what to make of all of it, honestly, besides the notion that humans are prone to both grace and fury, and it is difficult to predict which you will encounter at any given moment, so we should proceed accordingly.
I had the opportunity to visit the mall on boxing day,and I enjoyed watching people. Mostly parents with kids in strollers used them like battering rams to gether though the hoards. Workers were frazzled but still made a brave face and smiled at me when I sympathized with them. We picked one item to purchase, and after finding it we headed home to enjoy the afternoon. Boxing day is mostly a British and commonwealth thing, if you are in the States it isn't a big sale day. Their big sale day is the day after their Thanksgiving, otherwise know to Canadians as Greycup.
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