Last night I was happy as a lark, because I’d gone and bought something. Oh, I’d been trying not to shop — staying out of the high-end stores, choosing to walk home on streets with no shops, and dropping mail-order catalogs right into the trash. I even went to a few shopaholic meetings and talked about my problem.
I resisted and resisted, but in the end I gave in. I hadn’t meant to buy it. It was just one of those impulsive snap decisions where, I knew, if I didn’t go home with it, I’d just die. I guess I’m just not over my addiction. Simply pulling out my credit card gets me so excited!
Then came this morning. Oh my gosh! Was I drunk or something? I feel totally hung over. What am I going to do?! This most recent purchase — it’s so cute with its three little initials in an elegant white font on a crisp blue square! — means I now owe another $85-billion. And that’s on top of the $230-billion bill I’ve racked up in just the past few months. But could you pass up on the sweetest lil’ slightly used insurance company if, with just a swipe of plastic, you could own it? Could you?
I haven’t a clue how I’m going to pay for any of this, and really, I don’t know where I’ll put any of it. My closet is stuffed to the gills now, and even the driveway has a $2-trillion war — that’s going nowhere, of course — sitting in it. In the end, I may have to sell off some of what I’ve bought, even if I lose a lot of money doing it. I wish I could sell that monstrosity in the driveway, but even my so-called friends who chipped in a little tiny bit when I bought it are now nowhere to be found.
The worst part is that I haven’t yet explained any of this to my husband — he’s the one who pays the bills around here. Oh, I told him the bare-bones facts about it, and he made some kind of noise. I think it was a gasp. The good thing is, he’s got a real short attention span and he’d rather discuss whether certain women politicians are attractive or not.
The better thing is, he’s not very good at math. True, when the bills start coming due, he’ll probably raise a fuss. He might even threaten a divorce (he’s done that before), but I know it’s just talk. Besides, he won’t be able to do anything for another four years — we’ve got one of those contractual marriages. Anyway, I’ll tell him it simply wasn’t my fault. I had to do it.
What is it they say? Something like, “Privatize the profits, socialize the loss” — or the one I like better, “Socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.” Words we shoppers live by.
What can I say? Shopping is in my blood.
