Black Friday / Black Mood

Today is Black Friday. Named because it is the day retailers hope to be able to put down the red pen and pick up the black one, because this is the point they’ll start turning a profit. They hope.

This year’s Black Friday is the day my red heart came this close to turning black. Yesterday was the day we were supposed to express what we are most thankful for, but I wasn’t able to compile my list until today. This isn’t complete by any means.

What I’m thankful for:

I’m thankful that I’m not one of those kids standing on the corner with a cardboard sign, trying to get people to turn in for a car wash to raise the money for a friend or family member’s funeral.

I’m thankful that the most useful job hunting advice I’ve received so far is; lie. I realize now that lying is the only way I’ll ever get my foot in any door. Once in that door I’ll scramble and spin until I get the job or am shown the other side of that aforementioned door. Why Lie? Because lying works. Men lie to women to get them in bed, leaders lie to their people to keep them sheep, and I’ve personally seen where a man lied about a friend of mine at work and got himself promoted and my friend demoted, and eventually out of a job. I’m going to lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. College degree? Yup, from Harvard. Management experience? You bet. I supervised 10,000 children at a sneaker factory in China. Do you know VMware? Know it, I invented it.

I’m thankful for the lifetime of unanswered prayers I’ve received from
God. It took awhile but now I get it; no help is coming. I’m on my own. In fact it makes me stronger. I’m a superhero of bitterness and anger. God won’t help me; he’s too busy pouring money and success on child molesters in Pennsylvania and in cathedrals draped in gold and hypocrisy throughout the world, powerbrokers on Wall Street, extremely fat felines under the capital dome in Washington, doomsayers who are proven wrong over and over again but still get people to send in their dollars, and little Napoleons (who lie to get ahead) in every business and company across our great nation. I’m feeling so strong right now that I can even destroy God himself with a single thought. Here goes; there is no God. You’re welcome.

I’m thankful that my thyroid shut down, my immune system is systematically eating away my joints and thereby destroying my bones and that I don’t have the intelligence, or drive to do anything about it. It means the final sleep is near which is perfect for me because all I want is to sleep anyway.

I’m thankful that I’ve never known great success so I’ve never had to contemplate which person, whose livelihood I’ve held sway over, needs to be thrown into the street to bolster my bottom line and improve my portfolio. That’s time that could be better spent on the golf course talking about how we can get rid of our nigger President or at a “Gentleman’s” club sucking down Dewers and perusing the Mercedes Benz brochure.

I’m thankful that we have programs like the “It Gets Better” Project to let young gay people know that they need to shut up and keep quite to make it easier for the rest of us to pretend they don’t exist.

#########################THE TWIST#######################

The above person is who I am fighting from becoming every night when I go to sleep and every morning when I wake up. Alcohol doesn’t chase it away, and I can’t afford drugs. I only have this meager forum to spit it all out into.

The next time I see one of those kids with the cardboard sign, I’ll pull in a get my car washed.

I won’t lie. It would probably get me fired from any job I’d get because of the lie, and it belittles those who did get college degrees and some of those people are people I love.

I won’t kill God. I saw a marquee in front of a church the other day that said, “God’s greatest gift – unanswered prayer.” I don’t think this means all prayer, just a couple here and a couple there. It builds character and perhaps suggests what you asked for wasn’t something you really needed or was something that would have done more harm than good.

My medical problems are manageable and not uncommon. Plus it’s an opportunity to show my sons how to thrive despite adversity.

I’ve known success. I just define it differently than the men in my little scenario from above.

It doesn’t have to get better, because we get better.

#####################THE TURN############################

What I’m really thankful for:

I’m thankful for rain.

I’m thankful that I can visit the ocean.

I’m thankful there are good people still.

I’m thankful baseball will return.

I’m thankful I can breath, and read, and write, and listen to music, and laugh at John Cleese in Fawlty Towers reruns, that Ray Bradbury wrote, that Mark Knopfler played, that Ann Wilson sang, that George Washington Carver invented, that they put caramel in Gulden Draak Ale so it tastes better with chocolate chip cookies, that my sons are imaginative and funny, that my wife is still my wife, and that prayers go unanswered.