See you later Black Friday! So long Cyber Monday! Today is Crap Friday. It is the day that all the things you ordered on Cyber Monday are due to arrive at your home or are ready for collection in store.
It is like the arrival of relatives at your wedding you definitely don't remember inviting. Things you bought in a rush of excitement as the thrill of spending took hold are about to rain down on your home.
It is the Primark effect. You went in to look around. You came out with a brown bag bigger than your body.
If you are lucky enough to be with RBS you are immune from Crap Friday. Their on-line banking system is about as well cared for as an elderly relative the family forgot. No one could actually purchase anything. Consider yourselves blessed.
Some of the things that arrive at your house will fill you with regret. They say never go shopping for food when you are hungry for good reason. You end up unpacking Brussels sprouts and pork pies with pickle on. You hate pickle.
Receiving on-line deliveries is the bit of Cyber Monday we forget about,
We are so busy watching the telly in our jim jams shopping in the ad breaks, we don't think about the grumpy man from Yodel shouting that your house isn't where you said it was.
Sticking an enormous box in your hands they want a signature. "Yes of course, by happy chance I am blessed with foot writing skills".
I ordered a small travel clock and a remote controlled car from Amazon in a rash moment during I'm a Celebrity. Someone on their packing line decided I had ordered a small family caravan and chose the box accordingly.
I am offering it up to the homeless as a more permanent shelter over the Festive season.
Crap Friday has a special treat up its sleeve if you happen to be out when your 'signed for' delivery arrives.
Fourteen hours of queuing behind a man with no apparent access to running water awaits. Two electricity bills and a blood sample later, they still can't release your package because you're not the person on the label.
"Just tell me who you want me to be. I will be nice. I will be Elizabeth. I will be John with the Nasty Warts. Anything. Just give me my damn parcel".
Click and collect doesn't do you any favours either. Whilst the online market may have taken off like Ryanair, stores have not been able to rebuild their collection areas at the same speed as our fingers are clicking 'add to basket'.
The toilet sized room capable of dealing with the odd on-line purchase is now spewing out stock, crammed to the rafters. Jenny from menswear flounders about in it stepping on items marked FRAGILE unable to find your package.
John Lewis started this trend with their 'clicks and mortar' strategy. You 'click' at home and 'pick up' in the High Street. Except we click at home and dread the text that tells us we have got to go and queue for the blasted thing. Less 'Clicks and Mortar'. More 'Clicks and Ought'a Do That Today'.
The final straw is Collect+. Going to your local butcher to pick up half a pound of mince, a Barbie doll and the latest Lego Friends Cruiser is the shopping equivalent of going to an undertakers and booking a holiday. Just plain wrong.
I wish you luck with Crap Friday. Next Cyber Monday I am going to pencil Naff Friday on my calendar. I hope it will prevent me ordering £351 of stuff that I didn't need but have to collect from sweaty department stores and angry people wearing polyester.