Thanksgiving is like, so last month

It's going to take me a while to figure out these American people to the south. Why they insist on having Thanksgiving a month late is beyond me. It's clearly an October thing, which means it's done and over with and that puts us a full month into Christmas shopping season already.

I mean, feeling obligated to buy random crap for your relatives that you're dreading seeing and will probably fight with is far, far too important to leave to just one month of the year. Americans, of all people, should know this, what with their easy credit and credit cards and such.

I mean, shopping in the States is weird. Most of the time to write a cheque or use your debit card you have to show a credit card for id. What is with that? You can't live without them. The whole point of using the other two options is that the credit card never ever has to enter the picture so you don't have to pay it off. Your bank settles with merchant's bank and then it gets paid with no middleman.

Less middlemen means less interest charges, but I guess that's not the point.

We were shopping in the States one time and my friend used her debit card to buy some groceries. The cashier looked at the card, swiped it, bagged the purchase and we walked out, not completely sure if she'd actually paid for it or not. That was weird.

And then you come home and find that the exact same pair of shoes sells for the exact same amount only, in Canadian dollars, which is to say, cheaper, and the bagels that you bought in Seattle sit in the back of your breadbox for nine months before you discover them and they're not moldy.