Wal-Mart has been selling children’s Halloween pajamas since at least August 25th which is disgusting. At that moment in time, people were still purchasing back-to-school items and thinking very seriously about the numerous Labor Day-themed snack choices fighting for their attention. Sunscreen, beach towels and swimsuits still enjoyed prime merchandise real estate, yet still those pajamas hung.
Those pajamas hung defiant, crafty,
orange and eager. They hung eager to be
purchased by grandmothers who were in turn eager to see their progeny, cute as
buttons, don them on All Hallows Eve as they prepared themselves for yet
another glorious season of occult-themed sugar binging.
That is
the price, though, of living in the middle of the largest market economy in
history. Big
box stores are great when you need to do your monthly shopping within an hour,
but once you enter into one of these behemoths your chronological frame of
reference starts to get skewed. Is it Super bowl Sunday or Valentine’s
Day? Memorial Day or the Fourth of
July? Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s
Eve?
Seriously,
what day is it? Big box stores are like
very boring casinos where the house really does always win, determined to
disorient you to the point where you have no idea what time of year it is. Should I buy the heart shaped box of
chocolate or the shamrock shaped box of candy?
But wait. Didn’t we just make
some kind of New Year’s resolution about not eating sugar? Maybe instead I should just buy the Mardi
Gras hat on clearance. Clearance, though? Does that mean it’s already Lent? Is Mardi Gras over? I should go buy some fish, then, shouldn’t
I? But we’re not even Catholic. Does that mean I can’t eat fish on
Friday? Because I thought I saw salmon
on sale and that would help me lose weight before spring break, which, based on
that rack full of swimsuits, started yesterday.
Besides
being disoriented, the ability to purchase items months before they are needed is
unsettling in and of itself.
Conventional wisdom suggests that this so-called privilege might be
liberating. “Hey, I have all my
Christmas shopping done and it’s only Veteran’s Day.” On the surface, that sounds nice, but now you
have more than a month to wait before the big day, which is plenty of time to
second guess yourself into at least two or three more rounds of “last minute”
gift buying. Thus, when the January
credit card statement finds its way to your mailbox, the blessed yuletide
spirit you thought you had settled accounts with in November has returned, and
instead of saving time and money you’ve purchased more cordial cherries than
any reasonable person would consume in a year.
We
cannot blame marketing geniuses for merely doing their job, though. If people are willing to buy Halloween
pajamas in August, the warm kind with the feet in them that eventually smell
like goats, then those pajamas will be on display. The only way those pajamas will ever not be
on display two full months before their due date is if large groups of people
boycott such ploys in the first place.
As Gandhi purportedly said, “Be the change you wish to see in the
world.” Granted, he was probably referring
to world peace, but his point is still well taken in our modern scenario. If we ever want to go into a Wal-Mart and
only be offered seasonally themed merchandise when it is actually in season, we
must first pledge to stop buying it.
Thus, I pledge to wait. I pledge to wait for October to buy Halloween candy, even if it’s a few pennies more expensive. I pledge to wait until November before I buy pumpkin pie mix. I know pumpkin pie mix has a long shelf life. I know that! I know that there is even a slight logic in buying pumpkin pie mix before November to avoid the unlikely chance of a pumpkin pie mix shortage. That, however, is the risk I am willing to take. I pledge to wait.
I pledge to wait until February before I buy a Valentine’s Day card. What if they run out? I will make my own card, because I pledge to wait.
I pledge to wait until March before I buy Oreo cookies filled with green frosting. I pledge to wait until after those cookies are all gone before I buy Cadbury eggs filled with whatever that stuff is. And yes, those eggs must be totally consumed before I even think about buying anyone a Mother’s Day card. Harsh? Perhaps, but I pledge to wait.
Our collective journey around the sun used to be highlighted with events much larger than ourselves: solstices, equinoxes, and the cycles of the moon; religious observances and the remembrance of brave deeds and people. If we aren’t careful, we risk these days blending into a sugary glob of food coloring and credit card statements.
Let the pajamas hang. They’ll still be there in October.
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