‘Tis The Season To Be Wary, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #350 | @MDWorld

December 2, 2013 Mike Gold 5 Comments

How did you spend your Thanksgiving? Some greedy little bastards decided to spend it in jail.

At a local Wal•Mart, a New Jersey man was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and aggravated assault on a police officer after arguing with a store employee over a teevee set. And over at a Rialto, California Wal•Mart, a police officer was injured while trying to break up a fight after a store manager decided to open the doors early. There were three fights at this location, and everybody involved who wasn’t wearing a badge was busted.

At the Claypool Hill, Virginia Wal•Mart, 61 year-old Ronnie Sharp was arrested for threatening 35 year-old Christopher Jackson with a rifle and a knife. CNN says Jackson was suffering from a severe knife cut on his arm.

In Romeoville, Illinois, a driver believed to be involved in a shoplifting scheme was shot by authorities after dragging a police officer who was trying to stop him in the parking lot of a Kohl’s department store. The suspected shoplifter and two additional suspects were arrested.

A Las Vegas, Nevada Target customer who had purchased a big-screen television was shot in the leg while walking home. He was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Well, maybe, unless he knows who shot him.

Paranoia strikes deep. 16-year-old Daniel Gallego from Bayside New York, saved $200 on a Samsung smartphone at a nearby Best Buy. “I’ll save $200 at the cost of being hospitalized!” said Gallego.

500 employees were on hand Thanksgiving night at the Macy’s store in New York’s Herald Square. Many appeared shocked when the doors opened and thousands of shoppers flooded in. “This is madness,” a store employee told Reuters. “We are expecting one million people,” she said. “We don’t get trained for this.”

Five years ago, a Wal•Mart worker was trampled to death in New York and two men died after shooting each other at a Palm Desert, California Toys R Us. There have been no deaths associated with this year’s festivities, but I must note I’m writing this at 1 PM on Black Friday. You may already be a winner.

I guess it’s become a fad like “the knockout game ” – kids punching random strangers in the face, knocking them out. That’s big in New York City right now, and of course New Yorkers like to brag about how all trends and fads start there.

And thus begins the season of “peace on Earth and good will to all.”

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com and on iNetRadio, www.iNetRadio.com as part of “Hit Oldies” every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check www.getthepointradio.com above for times and on-demand streaming information. Gold also joins MDW’s Marc Alan Fishman, Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.