Please Don’t Let Me Die Like This.

I’m not really that morbid and I rarely think about ways I do or do not want to die…(1)

But please do not ever let me die in a stampede of recession-stricken, Wal-Mart shoppers the day after Thanksgiving. Can you imagine that? That’s freaking terrible. Seriously — that’s an atrocity.

Let’s look at this critically. The man was a 34-year-old temp employee. He works at Wal-Mart, which means he received no health benefits and gets paid minimum wage (and still $5,000 less than the average non-union worker in the retail industry). Even worse, he was a temp at Wal-Mart so not only is he not doing well financially completely broke, he’s even broker than his completely broke coworkers.(2)

He probably spent the night before enjoying some sort of chain restaurant Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Watched himself some football and drank a couple beers. Complained about having to go to bed early so he could wake up at 3:30am and go to a job he hates. Went to work and did what his manager told him to do and stood by the door. Then a bunch of greedy pricks start complaining about the cold outside and a mob mentality ensues. They start pulling at the door, trying to get their $200 LCD HDTVs and Blu-Ray disc players while Mr. Temp Wal-Mart Worker has to work that morning to pay off his Thanksgiving dinner. Eventually, they break the door down and Mr. TWMW wasn’t able to get out of the way soon enough. He gets rushed to the hospital where he dies while his family is still sound asleep.

That is a terrible way to go… It’s disgusting…

And yet so symbolic of American consumerism, individualistic priorities, and greed. Yay for the US of A.

This year, I’m thankful for being too poor to go out and trample store workers.

Footnotes:
  1. Except for on my birthday. I get really paranoid about dying on my birthday. Just because I think that may be the most ironic and horrible day to die. Can you imagine your death certificate having the same day as your birth certificate. Terrible. [↩]
  2. Which, as world-famous epidemiologist Michael Marmot points out, is synergistically even worse for your already bad health. [↩]