No surprise there

We read in dismay about the lady in California who pepper sprayed other shoppers to keep them away from her desired item--an XBox game for her children. In the mayhem that ensued, she got the item and with her three children, she checked out and left Walmart without anyone realizing she was the culprit. Twenty people were injured in the event, ten of which resulted from crowd smashing.

The subsequent articles about this event cited the problems of "Black Friday" including the desperation for certain items, the obsession with shopping, the insistence on the immediate acquisition, and the total disregard for other people. All these things and more, much more, caused this event to happen. Maybe in the end we can simply state that the lady was not well-grounded in her mental faculties.

But somehow many of us were not surprised that this happened. After all, an XBox is the greatest single object on the planet, worthy of mayhem and destruction, a game to end all games, and absolutely necessary for survival, not to mention the children that are utterly dependent on the game for happiness and joy in their lives. Who could exist without an XBox? Food, clothing, and shelter are secondary to the need for an XBox. In fact, I wonder why our government has not considered the XBox has a part of the bailout process for businesses, for welfare, for unemployment.

Maybe this is the problem. We are all entitled to an XBox, but we do not all have one. If every person on the planet were given the XBox, there would not be a need to pepper spray anyone trying to get it at the store. So I urge our governmental officials to stop the shopping chaos in Walmart by giving everybody an XBox, thus removing the need for pepper spray to prevent someone else from getting the XBox. Our entitlement to the XBox must also make us entitled to harm others to acquire that which we are supposed to have in the first place. In fact, maybe our Rights should be rewritten to state, "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of XBoxes"!

Okay, enough of the sarcasm. But I do urge everyone to use good judgment and human compassion in the acquisition of stuff. When our desire for things rules greater than our common sense and our sensitivity for others, then we are practicing an inverted sense of right and wrong.