The Christmas Market: A Shopping for the Holidays Guide for the Paranoid

In which our Heroine discusses the Particulars of a Paranoid Shopping Experience. 

10 Things to Keep in Mind on Black Friday:

1.       You are under surveillance in every store you go into.  DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT with anyone.

2.       Every person you see is out to get you, even at 4 a.m.  That’s why all the items on your shopping list keeping getting snatched up just before you get to the isle. 

3.       Never look at the surveillance cameras stationed in the high corners of stores.  If you let the invisible “security guards” suspect that you know where they are, you will be probably be apprehended, or at least detained for a short while in some generic hallway you never knew existed before.

4.       While mall shopping, make sure you double back and traverse the whole length of the mall several times just to make sure that no one is following you. 

5.       If you selfishly take the time to try on a shirt that you spotted on a rack, please assume that there are tiny camouflaged cameras hidden in the light fixture above your head.

6.       All natural disasters wait to happen on the holidays or days when the unknowing public is out and about.  You should probably bring a life jacket, or at least a parachute. 

7.       The big man waiting at the door of Best Buy really works for the CIA as part of a specialized covert ops division.  Don’t let him hear your Russian/Afghani accent!  He will take you down.  The excessive fat on his torso conceals his guns.

8.       When you use your credit or debit card, you are immediately and automatically put “on the grid.”  Please understand that if you ever have to suddenly disappear from society, you are finished.  Toast.  Crispy, blackened toast. 

9.       If you had been wise enough to use cash instead of cards, you could have had the pleasure of carrying around hundreds of dollars on a cutpurse’s day of paradise.  AND you could have toted around numerous large bills—all of which hold a sophisticated tracking mechanism located just to the left of a former President’s trusting face.   

10.    Know that everything you buy gets scanned into a computer when you check out.  The government is clearly working with corporate giants to document every item you personally buy.  With this in mind, your only option is to buy a host of useless and irrelevant articles that you will never use or gift to anyone.  Don’t let this excessive and frivolous waste deter you from enjoying your Black Friday Shopping experience.  When I check other carts, I’m pretty sure everyone else is secretly doing it too.