Black Wednesday: Special BYCU Edition
The day of the year when all bars get into the black. Well, kinda. Two days from now is called "Black Friday" (increasingly, "Black Thursday") because that's when retailers make a bunch of money and take their ledgers from red to black. Tonight, bars take their ledgers from red to black and patrons black out.
Wal-Mart Detour
Did Wal-Mart resolve the threat by some of its workers to walk-out this Black Thursday/Friday? Wikipedia says the walk-out is partially in protest to working on Thanksgiving. I can't say I blame the workers (and I appreciate their efforts to organize a union, though I loathe the Wagner Act that prohibits an employer from protecting itself from unionization).
I wouldn't want to work on Thanksgiving, especially if I weren't getting paid extra. From what I've heard, the workers don't get paid extra: they get double time, which equals their regular hourly rate plus the holiday pay they would've gotten anyway (Wal-Mart has six paid holidays). When I was in high school, I worked at K-Mart, and they paid me time-and-a-half to come in on Thanksgiving to prepare for Black Friday (plus I got my regular holiday pay). One year, they asked me to come in Christmas night and offered me triple time. I asked my Dad if it would be alright. He said something like, "If you don't take triple time, there's something wrong with you."
Drinking Stuff
Today will be a first for me. I'm not drinking beer. The cave man diet has allowed me to drink more beer than I used to be able to drink, but it still causes me stomach problems. It's normally not a big problem, since I just have a few drinks then go to bed. But today is different. Today calls for stamina: 3:00 in the afternoon until whenever. For the past couple of years, I've had to hang up my drinking shoes by 8:00 because my stomach is doubling me over: I end up at the table with my friends, grimacing through the pain, trying to stay long enough to make a solid appearance.
Not this year (hopefully). I'm drinking vodka. It doesn't fill me up like beer, it doesn't hurt my gut like beer, and I've read in many places that vodka is less likely to cause hangovers (sample). I've been experimenting with it for about a month now, and I've had pretty good luck . . . though I'm questioning the proposition that it's less likely to cause hangovers. Less likely than red wine and whiskey? Okay, perhaps, but less likely than beer? I'm not so sure.
Thanksgiving Drinking
Every year, I see articles about drinking on Thanksgiving (not Thanksgiving Eve, but the holiday itself). I've never really understood it, but that's probably because I hardly feel like a drink after eight hours of drinking the day before. One of the best ones this year can be found in New York magazine. They recommend twelve different drinks for twelve different events, starting at 9:00 am (a Dusty Apple toddy for the Macy's Day Parade) and a drink with the late night turkey sandwich (bourbon). The article isn't clear about whether you should down all dozen, but I suppose you could. Seven them are wines, one cider, and two beers: spread over the course of 15 hours. It'd definitely make for a mellow holiday, if a bit lethargic as well. Better bring some Red Bull and vodka, too.
