Single in Sandpoint:

By Scarlette Quille
Reader Columnist

It’s cold outside. This morning, I walked out to my car and my nipples immediately protested by slicing through a padded bra and several layers of fabric. Try telling your boss that’s why you are late for work.

To make matters worse, this time of year is depressing. I go to work when it’s dark out, and I drive home in the dark. It just doesn’t seem right. Anytime I am required to wake up when the sun hasn’t even made an appearance, seems brutally unfair and against the laws of nature. The powers that be saw this injustice and tried to sugar coat it by making it “holiday season.” I suppose they thought throwing a couple of holidays into the cold, dark, freeze-your-ass-off months would help save lives and sanity. It’s basically a divine therapeutic intervention. So the “patients” are sad? Let’s help them by creating a social expectation with a focus on gratitude and being nice to others. It will soothe their soul. Even though I am not a holiday person, I see that the intention was good.

Sadly, this good intention was somehow sabotaged by corrupt forces that eventually ruined the whole thing by creating Black Friday, which is basically the portal to hell. Fridays are supposed to be happy, like TGIF! However, this particular Friday is completely devoted to the acquisition of material goods and money, and it brings out the evil. Seriously, if you “need” to save $200 off a big screen TV so badly that you would physically harm another human being, maybe, just maybe, you really shouldn’t be purchasing it. Is saving a couple hundred dollars worth your soul? Is there anything at Walmart that is going to guarantee happiness if purchased? Society is saying yes, yes it’s worth it. We named the day Black Friday because we would like to just “black out” after it happens.

It’s important to the economy: That’s always the argument. Well, why wouldn’t retailers sell items at an affordable price year-round? That would sure eliminate some stress and chaos for a lot of people.

Whatever. This column isn’t really about business, or money. It’s more about the freezing dark portal that occurs at the end of November that is poised to seize your soul.

I think.

Shall I provide a personal story to support my point of view?

Yes. Yes I will.

This Black Friday, a friend of mine purchased a parrot. Yes, you read that correctly: a parrot. I can understand how one would make a such a reckless decision on a day like Black Friday. Picture this: You wake up on Black Friday with a severe tryptophan hangover. Then you are systematically coerced into shopping, because unless you work in the service industry, you have the day off (coincidence? I think not). You can’t spend any time outdoors because of the sub-arctic temperature, and you can’t bear to spend one more hour laying in your house. You realize that you must leave your house when you consider intravenously injecting leftover stuffing because walking to the fridge and dirtying another plate seems like far too much work. You take a chance and go out on Black Friday in an attempt to rejoin society. You end up parking at the pet store because it’s the only parking space open within two miles. You walk into the pet store, make the mistake of staring into the eyes of a devil bird and are instantly bewitched. I can see how that could happen.

I actually think I met a husband of mine the same way.

The point is, because of Black Friday, I will now live my life in constant fear of the feathered monstrosity plotting my demise. It is living a mere staircase away from a place that I regularly slumber, observing my patterns and weaknesses. The bird already has a taste for blood and jewelry, as one of its first tactical missions was to steal the jewel out of its owners ear and then bite his girlfriend. When I close my eyes at night, I know even though the bird can’t see me, it senses that it would be a perfect time to fly down and tear my eyes out.

I am trying really hard to work on my bird fear. I have made some therapeutic advances by realizing that not all birds are vile. I allow my children to raise chickens. They are nice. I don’t touch them, or eat their eggs, but I see the value in their abilities to be humorous and control the insect population. I am slightly afraid of chickens, but I can handle them because my chickens don’t fly and can never speak in human language.

Why do parrots have the ability to speak? It’s not for self preservation. It’s a gift given by some dark god in thanks for millions of their ancestors doing his dirty work. Of all the birds, the ones that speak human scare me the most. I know there is something fishy about their ability to acquire language without lips or teeth. Seriously, why can’t monkey’s talk? It just doesn’t make sense on a basic level.

Armed with this knowledge, I decided to face the devil bird. I walked upstairs and instantly heard the clicking of talons from at least six feet away. There it was, hanging upside down as it turned its head 190 degrees toward me. It was the most terrifying ten seconds of my life. I tried to act casual, like it was a normal pet that just licks its junk and looks at you with hopefulness. I tried. But this animal appeared in my life on Black Friday. The universe is warning me to stay far away from it.

I casually asked the bird’s slaves about its lifestyle, hoping to get some sort of clarity on why they brought it into their lives willingly. As I made small talk, the bird walked around his male slave’s shoulders, looking for the perfect place to dig into a jugular. It was terrifying.

I left quickly, but the image of his beady eyes continues to haunt my dreams. It probably will for decades to come, because I think the life expectancy of one of Satan’s feathered minions is 100 years or something. It will likely outlive all of us, enjoying Black Fridays and human flesh for years to come.

Black Friday: Is it the beginning of the holiday season or the end of humanity?

Hopefully the bird can’t read yet,

SQ