Britney Spears is sane. Christmas shoppers are crazy.

There is a new hunting season for all you eager folks ready for a kill. This competitive sport opens the day after Thanksgiving and is usually called Black Friday, but a better name would be Bloody Friday. Yep, you guessed it, it’s Christmas Shoppers Season where you can get points for wiping out the competition, depending on the size of the kill of course, or you can go for the big game and take out a Retail employee.

Beware this shopping season or you might find yourself in the cross hairs of the mass hysteria of stupidity.

You know where I am going with this, how can I let the horrifying fact that people are dying on Black Friday because some wild eyed idiot might save fifty dollars on a digital camera, or a hundred dollars on a plasma television, pass. Where has our humanity gone?

Crazy is as stupid does, and well, this country is full of crazy.

Death by Christmas shopping is becoming the norm this year, in a year that has seen some pretty outrageous things. And for what? Do we devalue life so much we trample it on the way to the electronics section? Is there any humanity or decency when after killing the poor employee the crowd of blood thirsty shoppers became angry because the store had to close due to a DEATH? A death that they inflicted? All for a gift that will probably be returned? Just imagine if Santa was giving out Xboxes at the local mall instead of candy, he would be crushed by greedy mall shoppers. Yes, Virginia there is a Santa… but he is dead. Killed by stupidity.

I read one headline about the horror that read “Deck the halls and each other.”

Christmas rage shopping… it can happen anywhere. What have we come to? Just check out the tension at the nearest shopping facility… parents beating kids, lovers arguing, grandparents fussing. Anger, greed, frustration and oh, Merry Christmas! Bah, humbug!

I will take some safety precautions this year and save my life by shopping online. No lines, no hassle, no violence (except for the occasional interruption of fight between the twins!) and no angry mobs bearing down on me.

Who is not crazy these days? Look at Britney Spears, how many derogative insults did I launch at the Celeb’s rebellious ways when I thought she was just a spoiled brat with no self worth to speak of. We since discovered she has some legitimate mental issues. I applaud her family for taking control, getting her help, and now the once superstar is back. Did anyone think she would be still on the planet a year ago? Kudos to the Britney. She has her groove and her sanity.

Crazy is gas prices and stock markets. What is going on? First we hit a tsunami peak at the pump and now I am gleefully filling up my car like I just won the lottery. I actually was disappointed when I could not go fill up when it went under two dollars. I kept thinking, hurry up gas needle, and go lower so I can pay under two bucks again, you know, before it flies back up.

Two months ago, you would stand at the pump, miserable, everyone around you gloomy and sad, grumbling as we put as much as we could afford into our vehicle. Now, it’s like a scene from a Broadway musical. Everyone is smiling, whistling and humming as they pump, almost dancing around the car. Whippee! Did you see it went down another seven cents! Let’s go fill up the lawn mower too!

Yes, it’s a crazy world. Britney is sane again, Christmas shoppers are killing folks, and pirates are back on the opens seas. Yo, Ho, are we back to skull and cross bones again? Has the Disney trilogy made pirates popular again? They have hit a Japanese tanker, a French yacht, a Spanish fishing boat and recently took over a Saudi tanker and a Greek freighter.

Blackbeard has left the ocean. These pirates are not your great grandma’s pirates. Due to coastal countries lack of ability to secure their coast lines, the opportunity to access all the booty floating in the open seas has become too good to pass for marauding thugs with machine guns and evil intent. Basically, terrorists at sea, or maybe as bad as Christmas shoppers at sea. Yikes.

On the theme of crazy I would like to dwell momentarily on some crazy thoughts from the website rightly named crazythoughts. Here are a few of my recent favorites:

At a movie theater, which arm rest is yours?

Where does the toetag go on a dead person if they don’t have toes?

How far east can you go before you are heading west?

If pro and con are opposites, wouldn’t the opposite of progress be congress?

If a kid refuses to sleep during nap time are they guilty of resisting a rest?

Why is the Lone Ranger called “Lone” if he always has his Indian friend Tonto with him?

When does it stop being partly cloudy and start being partly sunny?

Can crop circles be square?

And so it goes the crazy world we live in. So beware if you venture out to your local retail store, or high sea adventure, maybe you should wear armor or football padding?

Could we celebrate this wondrous holiday of love without shopping? Would the world end?

Tracy Williams is a guest columnist and can be reached at myhometown@comcast.net