Britain, as Napolean is supposed to have said, is a nation of shopkeepers ("L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers"). And I am sure it has been pronounced several times before, that the US is a nation of shoppers. And never is it clear more forcefully to me than the days leading up to Christmas. From the Black Friday madness when people queue up outside stores in the cold hours ahead of store openings and then storm in -- a madness enough to even trample over some hapless ones who come in the way -- to the traffic gridlocks one witnesses as Christmas draws near, it is an inexplicable display of commercial ferocity, extreme obsession and boundless patience. All of these -- ferocity, obsession, patience -- necessary ingredients to fight traffic (on the backed up roads, in the parking lots), to fight blizzards and other weather disasters, to fight crowds in the stores and still emerge happy and vindicated, laden with shopping bags.
I know love and affection in relationships endures, mediated by PlayStations and iPods and 42" flatscreen TVs and LL Bean sweaters, but I keep wondering how.
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