Overstuffed

Its the weekend after thanksgiving and the activities of the past couple of days may have you feeling a bit lethargic and stuffed. I'm not just talking about turkey and dressing in your belly , I'm talking about all the merchandise you purchased on Black Friday destined to stuff your storage area. The family holiday of bountiful feasts to celebrate the fall harvest is being kicked out by the corporate sponsored frenzy designed to celebrate retailers year end profits. During a time of 9% unemployment, record mortgage foreclosures, and a economy trying to keep its credit rating, advertisers have sacrificed Thanksgiving to give Americans more time to spend money we don't have. Being able to afford environmentally harmful, mass produced products in a globally unfair market is a problem in itself, but many Americans are starting to struggle with storing all of the useless treasures thy have accumulated over the years. The conspicuous consumptive shopping habits of Americans are starting to show in our bulging closets, garages, and rented storage units, and are putting the squeeze on our already tight pockets.

The term Black Friday was coined during the 1960's in Philadelphia by police officers and other public workers who dreaded shoppers crowding the streets the day after Thanksgiving, looking for bargains to kick off the holiday season. The term spread during the 70's and 80's but started to get real momentum during the 90's, and has since been deemed the " busiest shopping day of the year". Many retailers say they depend on the day to keep them profitable, or in the "Black", and can help them predict holiday shopping trends. It also is a day for consumers to get high priced items at bargain prices. For many years, retailers opened there doors at 6am Friday morning, then some started to open at 5am, then 4am, and in the late 2000's, retailers started to open at 12am, giving people the opportunity to shop all night long. In 2011, Walmart and Toys'R'Us pushed the envelope by opening their doors at 10pm Thanksgiving night. Targets employees and their families signed petitions and employed the media to urge the retailer to rethink it's decision to open so early, and allow workers to spend time with their families. Target replied by saying it was only responding to public demand, and that many employees requested to work the midnight shift. The demand that Target refers to seems to be massive in spite of protests inside and outside of the stores. The failing economy, and the Wall Street Occupation/99% movement hasn't put a damper on spending this holiday season with brisk sales and crowded stores filled with shoppers bringing out the worst in each other. Bloody grandma's fighting for Tickle Me Elmo's and innocent mothers being trampled to death by stampeding shoppers vying for the latest gaming system is the price we pay to keep our children spoiled. The popularity of Black Friday coincides with the booming self storage industry in America. Americans are spending billions of dollars a year to rent spaces to house the things we don't use but can't seem to part with.

The Self Storage industry is primarily an American phenomenon. In 2009, there were 58,000 storage facilities world wide and 46,000 were located in the U.S. There is more than 2.35 billion square feet of storage space in America, equivalent to three Manhattan Islands, and one in ten Americans rent a storage space of some kind. Sizes range from 10x5 foot(large walk in closet) to 20x20 foot(two car garage). The units traditionally have been located at the edges of cities or in industrial areas in warehouses or individual drive up structures. Recently however, storage facilities have been popping up in vacant office and retail spaces in the heart of cities due to demand and the loosening of zoning restrictions. The recent housing crisis has driven the demand for storage units, and people who once had houses to store years of clutter in have been forced to downsize and either get rid of things or put them into storage. Most of us at some point have had to sort through our own, or someone else's belongings and wonder what to do with the things we can't seem to part with. Some people end up forfeiting substantial square footage in there homes to make room for their stuff. Most people couldn't park their car in their garage if they had to because it is filled with items collecting dust. Closet's, attics, and even living spaces are crammed with boxes of gifts from birthdays and Christmas' long forgotten. We have bigger houses and more land than most countries on earth, yet we still need more room for our stuff. Unlike most rental units, storage units come with a catch. If you don't pay the rent, the owner of the unit doesn't chuck your stuff on the curb for you to collect, the owner gets to keep your stuff to auction off for the rent. Even though most of the items in storage units are considered junk, some house antiques or other items that can be sold for much more than the monthly rent of the unit. This has spawned an industry within a industry, and popular TV series like Auction Hunters and Storage Wars. With people running out of food and others running out of space, we still spent another Friday after Thanksgiving stuffing our lives full of merchandise we don't need, can't afford, and simply don't have room for. Americans need to go on a shopping diet and examine our gluttonous spending habits. We are becoming a nation of hoarders who collect massive amounts of useless stuff for no other reason than the false psychological sense of national security. Spending your way out of a recession or depression is not going to solve our problems, it only leaves us over stuffed.