It's Tally Tuesday!

In the wake of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and even the upstart Buy Nothing Day, what phraseology helped consumers make sense of last Tuesday? Call it Tally Tuesday. But how great it would be to see a breakout of data for money spent by consumers on the four days following Thanksgiving.

First reports said online spending Monday rose 21% over last year. Cyber Monday has roots in the frothy dotcom build-up of the late 1990s, which included the $400 Amazon stock price prediction. Surely, modern savvy online holiday shoppers were not waiting for an official Cyber Monday to start buying. No, they clicked all extended weekend long (some in their pajamas), avoiding 4 a.m. rushes to the mall and parking lot anxiety. Cyber Monday isn't really targeted at them. It's for Black Friday shoppers who struck out at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Target -- or need a spending outlet while in the office. One word that you'll never see attached to today: Returns.

Those come after Christmas, as in Returns Wednesday.