Here's today's screed from Scott Turner, the quizmaster at Rocky Sullivan's in Red Hook brought to you by Miss Wit, the t-shirt queen of Red Hook. Greetings Pub Quiz Holiday Bargain Hunters…

Doorbusters.

Doorbusters!

Doorbusters!!!!!

DOORBUSTERS!!!!!

DOORBUSTERS!!!!!

DOORBUSTERS!!!!!

DOORBUSTERS!!!!!

DOORBUSTERS!!!!!

It's the worst concept, construct, idiom, catchphrase, buzzword and social ideology ever.

Well, not worse than genocide.

But close.

That's the descriptive being deployed for all the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales, deals and enticements this holiday shopping season.

Now, I like the season's trappings.  The trees, lights, excitement.  Until they start admitting that Jesus was,
at heart, a socialist, I won't spend much time on the guy's birthday. 
That, and his actual birthing being sometime in the spring.  That's the
shepherds watching over their flocks is really part of the story. 
(That's when the lambies are born.)  December 25th didn't even come
into play until 325 CE, in Rome — and that was only because the Romans needed a holiday to counter the winter solstice soirees all over the empire.

Digression concluded.  The joviality this time of year is fun.  But
goodness, is it concurrently depressing.  The amount of money spent on
gifts, for starters.  What's the absolutely unmeasurable percentage of
gifts bought because someone has to, not wants to?  The frenzy to shop,
score big deals, line up in the early morning gloom to be first inside
a big box store before the Thanksgiving meal is even digested.

Last year it was so bad Jdimytai Damour, a security guard at WalMart's Valley Stream, Long Island
location, was killed in the stampede for savings. Shoppers pushed their
way past the dying Damour, and store officials let them.  Sadly, Damour
was a footnote the moment he died — the bigger story being the
hand-wringing over sales figures in the debris of last year's fiscal
meltdown.

Jdimytai Damour, and doorbusting for real

And now we have "doorbusters."

Whatever one's view of the holiday season, this can't be the right call.

"Doorbusters"
conjurs chaos, fury, consumer madness and physical violence.  How
comforting the phrase must be for Jdimytai Damour's family and
friends.  I get corporations, box stores and the media embracing such a
counter-holidays formulation.  That's the nature of the myriad beasts.

But us?  It'd be nice to slow down and breathe.  There should be a sign: No Running On The Edge Of The Shopping Pool.

With doorbusting taking root this holiday season,  I feel like this this guy:

Bob Marley once sang "If you are the big, big tree/We are the small axe/Ready to cut you down." Real good David and Goliath stuff. 
I like being a small axe, but for the holidays, I like cozying up with
my sad little tree, calling some friends over, and giving it a boost.

Giving us all a boost.

…without a single door busted.