Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is here. Well it sorta works like that. For the stores, Christmas starts about a week before Thanksgiving. I know this because I was trying to buy tablecloths and napkins for Thanksgiving only to be confronted by a whole lot of Santa. If there is a war on Christmas, Christmas is clearly winning, and we are all worse for it.

Some of us have to work Thanksgiving evening because our shithead corporate overlords decided it would be a good idea to sell hot wings after turkey dinner or jeans for half-off in anticipation of a holiday that is almost a month away. Some of us are lucky enough to have the night of Thanksgiving off, but if you work retail, that night of freedom is more of a cruel tease as the next four to six weeks of your life are going to be pure hell.

While the Christmas creep is real, most of the trouble still starts on Black Friday. I have no idea why we put ourselves through this misery. Grown adults have beaten each other to death over a Tickle Me Elmo on Black Friday. Someone even got shot over a TV once! Despite all of this, we keep doing it every year and even decided to expand the idea to Small Business Saturday for “small businesses” and Cyber Monday for online retailers. Who knows what a small business really is, so that one is really just another Black Friday and the second one sounds like something people did on AOL back in 1996.

All these shopping holidays serve as another excuse to push us into buying more shit that we don’t need. To get us to do just that, the advertising onslaught at this time of the year is truly insane. Emails, pop-up ads, banners and commercials abound for anything and everything that can be bought, and you are the target of every. single. one.

The ads are unrelenting and utterly draining. With our time and energy already sapped by travel, family and cooking, we don’t really need the combined forces of the nation’s 100,000-plus ad agencies bearing down on us during the holidays too. That doesn’t help the situation, and it sure as shit isn’t necessary or welcome.

If we let this shopping plague continue, we are going to lose Sunday next. You laugh now, but it happened to the Saturday and Monday after Thanksgiving already. It wasn’t even that hard to do. Sunday is the next illogical step in this shopping hell we have created for ourselves. That’s why I’m calling for a national day of rest between Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

These shopping holidays are getting out of hand. They are turning us into deal-devouring monsters. I think a day to ourselves to reflect on who we are and what we are doing in this world is exactly what the doctor ordered. For those who hate the idea of that, take it as a day when you can ignore the rest of the world and do your own thing. I’m calling it, “Leave Me the Fuck Alone Sunday,” and it just might change the world.

Leave Me the Fuck Alone Sunday means exactly what you think it does. On that day, no one may bother you or cause you problems. You don’t have to work, and since no one is working, nothing will be open. There won’t be anywhere to go, so the roads will be closed. Only certain necessary public services like water, sewer and electric companies will be open on Leave Me the Fuck Alone Sunday, and for those poor saps who must work, we will designate the following Tuesday “Fuck off Tuesday” for them.

I know it sounds crazy, but think of the possibilities. For one day each year, your family can’t force you to visit or call them. You don’t have to do chores or pay bills like a regular adult on Leave Me the Fuck Alone Sunday if you don’t want to, and no one can say a word about it otherwise. You don’t have to answer your phone, respond to texts or emails or even talk to anyone else on this one special day. And if anyone tries to break the rules to ruin your day, all you have to say is, “Leave me the fuck alone!”

With the internet, the world is only going to get more and more up in your personal business, and these holiday shopping ads are only going to get more intrusive. The retailers are going to press for more made-up holidays to celebrate shopping and we are all going to suffer, unless we choose this one day.

It’s a day when we can unite around being left alone, and it may just save our lives. Next year, when you are worn out from Grey Thursday, Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, and you don’t think you can make it through Cyber Monday, remember to take a break on Sunday and tell the world to leave you the fuck alone! You won’t regret it.

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