Apocalyptic Shopping With Pepper Spray

It’s quite amazing that I haven’t made the obvious connection between Black Friday and my sporadic Signs of the Apocalypse before, but this year brings us signs of our impending doom:

Black Friday turned into a black mark against American shoppers as riotous crowds brawled over video games, waffle irons and towels, drawing international condemnation and even raising questions about the state of humanity.

One of the most outrageous incidents of the day was in the Los Angeles area, where up to 20 people were injured after a woman at a Walmart used pepper spray to get an edge on other shoppers in a rush for Xbox game consoles.

Words fail.

Apocalyptic Family Dinner

In the latest sign that civilization is surely about to collapse around our ears, I recently witnessed a family set up at the table next to us, as seen above. Before sitting down, the wife/mother pulled out some sani-wipes to make sure that the table was, you know, clean. And sanitary. After this, they pulled out this red contraption, which, given their obvious health-hangups, must be something like an insulin tester for a diabetic child.

The reality was much more sinister: a portable DVD player, which was immediately turned on and left running for the entire meal. A more level-headed person would discourse on the substitution of entertainment for parenting, but all I can say is DEAR GOD DO NOT JUDGE US TOO HARSHLY.

An Apocalyptic Fucking Bridge

Various permutations of the word “fuck”—clusterfuck, fucktarded, unfuckingbelievable, ad infinitum—are completely insufficient to describe the apoplexy that overtook me when I first saw Let’s Build a Fucking Bridge.

Because the biggest threat to the church is waiting in your fucking car for too long.

Edit: Thom Turner writes the kind of stuff I would have if I’d been able to manage more than cussing over at Everyday Liturgy.

Apocalyptic Daycare

In yet another sign–for those who have eyes to see–that the world is about to crash down around our ears, daycares are providing surveillance cameras. From their own lips:

It is natural for you to wonder about your child after they have been dropped off at day care. How many times have you wanted to be a fly on the wall to get a peek at what they were doing? Now you can, thanks to Peekaboo’s Video Over the Internet (VOI) system. You can now stay in touch with your child visually any time of the day, anywhere you have access to a computer. From your office, your home, or even while traveling you have the opportunity to see your child at play.

How much fear and mistrust do you have to be filled with to need to monitor your child every moment like this? What hope is there for a society not able to muster the basic trust necessary to not need to monitor and control everything?

A society filled with this much fear and mistrust could be called a lot of things. Dysfunctional. Irrational. Alienated.

And definitely doomed.