Black Friday-Cyber Monday-Cheaply Made Crap=A Happier You

Ah yes. With the last bones of Thanksgiving turkeys stuffed into trash cans and the big empty boxes folded and stuffed neatly into recycling bins, you know what’s already underway; that ever-loving holiday shopping season that makes big business executives pee in their rubber three-piece pants suits, hoping you’ll buy from their stores, so you can make them fat and happy, bankrolling their IRA accounts, just like those oil companies did to those of us who needed gasoline in their tanks this past summer.

It’s Cyber Monday in a nation that just endured the onslaught of Black Friday coupled with all of those advertisements brightly blaring about savings galore on newly manufactured crap that most of us really don’t need, but many go out and buy anyway.

Where does the need come from? For what reason is there such a need? It comes from a “want” list given by kids to parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles and from cousins, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, partners to each other and so on and so forth.

Want list? Whatever happened to being surprised with whatever gift was received? It went back long ago and was exchanged at stores for something more desirable or attainable.

Attainment of desired gifts? Sounds serious to me! Gifts for the most part are materialistic, unless of course you receive a book, a music CD, food or something that has a better chance of surviving with a backload of happy memories, verses that HD 100-inch television that will undoubtedly take heavy abuse during sporting matches or porn film festivals.

But what’s the point of desiring something bigger, when it’s not necessarily the best? Flashy features and up-to-date improvements are all well and good, but is it so much better than what you have now? If you take care of a product, it’s more than likely going to have a longer shelf-life.

Most of my belongings have lasted a good long time. Out of the many things I own, here are three old items that still work with relative ease.

I have a 1950 Zenith radio I bought at an auction 25 years ago. The radio itself is over 50 years old and I can still get in my favorite radio stations, both on the AM and FM dials with no problems at all. Imagine that!

Then there’s the General Electric clock radio my dad, Rex Pater Homo bought for himself and The Arizona Babe when both of them were still working stiffs in the 1980s. After they moved and retired permanently to The Valley Of Golden Happiness, the clock radio was given to me and great thunder! After 20 years, it still works!

Finally my Saturn, a car I’ve probably taken better care of than my first vehicle, a Geo Prism that lasted me all of five years with over 92,000 miles on it. I put new tires on my Saturn, replace aging parts or equipment and change the oil every 3,000 miles. Sure it has bumps, scratches and a scar on the right front hood from a driving accident during a snowstorm a few years ago, but I still have it, nearly seven and a half years later with 51,000 miles plus and it works!

Overall, you don’t really need to go out and buy new things when there are things you already have that work so well already. Try gift-giving alternatives like www.craigslist.com or www.freecyle.org. Re-gifting is okay in this day and age too. Everybody else does it, so why can’t you?

Save a landfill! Save an American worker’s job! Be creative this holiday season! And most of all be good to yourself, for after all you deserve a little happiness once in a while!