Bandwagon groupie

Trust the retail gods to compete with the Catholic ones. This Holy Week, specially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, more restaurants and cafes were open than usual. This was a blessed relief from the usual shutdown we experience during the Lenten season, when there's nothing else to do but to be left to our own devices. (Nowadays, it isn't so bad though, when the devices referred to are the smart phones and tablets we have on hand, unlike the time when the only thing available was local television showing religious films. The horrors.).

A few years ago, there was nothing open during the whole three days Jesus was also resting. Then some malls decided to open on Black Saturdays, leaving Holy Thursdays and Fridays intact as days of solemnity. That gave them another opportunity to make some more money from the hungry and the parched Lenten worshippers, but apparently, even this wasn't enough.

This year (and this could even have happened last year, although I wasn't around to verify) certain malls kept their doors open for Lent.  There were Starbucks, pizza parlors, milk tea establishments, and burger joints galore with wonderfully air-conditioned interiors gulping down hot and hungry victims.

I have no issues with this: it ties in very neatly with my slothful attitude during holidays, and makes life a thousand times more convenient. In that sense, I am a perfect victim of these commercial masterminds, those business owners whose only purpose in life is to make yet even more money at our expense.

I never heard of National Siblings Day before, but suddenly, there it was being celebrated on Facebook. People were posting pictures of their brothers and sisters, every one all gushy and senti. Anecdotes and reminiscences kept being fed to my time line, and I believe I just saw a new trend being born.

If I were an entrepreneur, this could be the next big thing to capitalize on. I would think of keepsakes and mementoes to hawk to brothers and sisters all just looking for ways to express their long pent up love for their siblings, those emotions they just couldn't show through heartfelt gestures and small meaningful moments, and so they need some tangible merchandise to prove their affections.

Much like we are forced to buy roses for Valentine's day and bouquets for Happy Mother's Day and yes, chocolate eggs and bunnies for today, Easter Sunday. It's the same principle operating on Christmas Day: guilt. If you don't give anything to your loved ones, then it means you don't love them. Who needs that burden, right?

So next year, maybe we'll see sibling lockets, gold or silver chains which you can give to your favorite sibling. Then you can put trinkets on it reminiscent of special moments you shared while growing up, like a miniature basketball for the Lakers game you watched together with Dad, or a tiny baseball bat to recall the day eldest brother drove away the bullies at school.

Why not give each other vouchers to your favorite getaway destinations, like the beach or shopping trips to Hong Kong. Or the latest electronic gadgets for techies, right in time for Lenten boredom. Wow, it's going to be Christmas all over again.

And that's just what the retailers want. A whole new day to exploit and make money from. If Maundy Thursday and Good Friday weren't sacrosanct enough to stop them from opening shop, what more this newfangled concept called National Siblings Day.

I could be busy resisting this hot new trend and preaching against it. Or I could be using this one year interval to hunker down and plan on profiteering from my friends. Hmm. Ideas...