Salivation and Black Friday

A runny nose is one thing, excessive salivation is another. We normally associate a runny nose with having a cold; salivation is often associated with a stroke or madness. People do not normally salivate excessively; it is abnormal for entire populations to excessively salivate - at least it once was abnormal...but no more. 

We have friends and coworkers excessively salivating, communities salivating, an entire nation salivating - our excessive salivating puts Pavlov's dogs to shame - they produce a trickle of salivation compared to our Niagara. 

Like Pavlov's dogs we have been conditioned; as Black Friday approaches our habits change, our Thanksgiving changes from what it once was, our time with family changes, our spending changes. We think we are smart by taking advantage of Black Friday "savings", we think we are even smarter by taking advantage of Black Friday sales that begin on Thanksgiving - no matter that this means we pay lip service  (or stomach service) to Thanksgiving, no matter that others must work so that we can gorge on materialism. 

We think we are smart, but our excessive salivation reveals that we are but following in the paw prints of Pavlov's dogs...no doubt they thought they were smart too. Considering that Pavlov's dogs were few but we are many...perhaps we are more akin to a pack of rats.