Shopping maul.

I usually get a little glum this time of year. Part of it is purely biological -- the dark days aren't good for my poor little brain. But more and more it's that I feel myself hating the holiday season, or, to be more precise, what the holiday season has become. In so many ways, it's now nothing more than a commercial feeding frenzy.

While I understand that this year's "Black Friday shopping extravaganza" was an important indicator as to the state of the economy, I was getting a little fed up with all the hype leading up to it. Watching the number of big-screen TVs heading out of our local Wal-Mart always makes me a little ill.

So when I saw the news that a Wal-Mart worker was actually trampled to death while opening the doors on Black Friday, I nearly threw up. The union says that the death was preventable. Well, yes! How about we not be so greedy and "thing-thirsty" that we act like nothing more than animals?! It makes me think of that scene in the Lord of the Flies when the kids get so caught up in their inner wild ways that they kill one of their own.

Hubby and I have ... (counting) ... sixteen nieces and nephews to shop for, and already I'm dreading it. While I doubt I'll be trampled to death, I can pretty much guarantee I will be hit with at least two impatient shopping carts today.

Jdimytai Damour was the name of the man killed. I wonder if he was even "Christian", like those who mowed him down. And I wonder how he got chosen to be the one to open the door.

Most of all, I wonder what the hell is wrong with society, that such a thing would happen in the first place.

Merry Commercialmas, everybody.