THE CHURCH OF STOP INTERNET SHOPPING
Hi, my name is Gaby, and I’m addicted to internet shopping. J/k, I actually don’t have enough money to be addicted to anything except huffing household solvents, but I do have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to Alf trashcans on ebay, ugly overpriced t-shirts on etsy and other things that might actually technically bring down your quality of life by owning them. It’s not that I shop a lot, or buy anything expensive—far from it. But I just have poor impulse control when something unusual strikes my fancy, a situation that more often than not ends in tears, either when the package comes to my house and it turns out I actually bought a Cabbage Patch Kid covered in mold, or when I realize that by buying said Cabbage Patch Kid, I am taking yet another step along the road to eating cat food under an overpass around my 60th birthday. This is an affliction that many of you share, I’m sure—it’s an affliction quite prevalent in girls in the big city who still quite haven’t figured out what we want to be when we grow up—a suite of mixed emotions we express through buying a shirt that makes us feel like a writer or a painter or a musician (for, like, a day) or buying a special tray to lean a computer on while sitting down, so you can write in bed, just like Truman Capote (and so you can forget about it and cover it in 2 month old copies of The Onion in a few weeks, just like Truman Capote!). And so forth. It’s gross.
I have had varying degrees of success through the years with trying to curb my internet shopping habits, such as taping signs up around my bedroom that say “IF YOU BUY ANOTHER UKULELE ON EBAY YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO EAT FOOD FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH. YOU KNOW THAT, RIGHT?” But I recently returned from a trip abroad where I incurred no debt but spent nearly every penny I had; so, it is time for me to get serious about stop internet shopping (also, regular shopping, but internet shopping is harder). Below, some tips!
1. PUT THINGS ON AN AMAZON WISHLIST: I, like, compulsively buy books off Amazon and Powell’s and anybody else who will bring a book to my house. I always buy used books, which I use to trick myself into thinking that I am not blowing money, but that is totally like people who think they are going to lose weight because they started drinking Diet Coke. Obsessively buying more books than you could read in several lifetimes is a family affliction—my grandfather went to the Strand religiously in his retirement, and when he died, someone needed to be hired to sort through all of the books. I am well down this path. As anyone who has ever been in my home can tell you, my book situation is totally fucking out of control—in addition to getting books for free at my job and picking up any interesting book I see on the sidewalk, I average at least on book purchased on the internet a week. It adds up, yo. Esp because there is like tax and shipping and handling and whatever. So, I made an Amazon wishlist, which has helped on 2 levels: often when I buy a book, its because I’ve just had a discussion about or read about something related—where the impulse factor comes in. So now, instead of engaging with that hideous bitch-goddess One Click Shopping, it goes on the Wishlist, where I can have a long hard think about how much I actually want to know about Joan Baez or nuclear physics. I also have been finding that just pressing the wishlist button gives me a kind of shopping-related satisfaction—the “ooh, something new in my life! Maybe this will finally change things!!” feeling. I’m sure you can make these kind of lists on other non-ebay/ etsy type websites, where there are a few (or a lot) of everything, and you can afford to wait a while and not miss out. You’re not missing out. I mean, really? Joan Baez? Since when do you trust book reviews from the New York Times? Anyway. Which brings me to my next point:
2. VISIT THINGS IN THE STORE: I wanted this writing tray thingie that they sell at the Crate and Barrel near my job. I wanted it soooooo bad. I wanted it so much because it would help me write in bed, which I often do, and now I wouldn’t have to hunch over my computer and I wouldn’t grow a hump and I would still be pretty by the time I got famous for finishing my brilliant novel, duh. I wanted it so much that I thought about coming into Manhattan on the weekend to get it. So I went there today, after work, to finally pick it up, and I realized…I am just as happy looking at it in the store. I am as happy picking it up, sitting down, holding it in my lap, and running my hand over it for a minute as I would be if I paid $30, brought it home, and started hanging my underwear off of it. Probably more happy, actually. Unless it’s a finely crafted dress, buying shit is almost always a let down. You’re not prettier, smarter, more motivated, or more urbane than you were before. So, I am looking into expanding this as a method. It’s like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, except instead of Audrey Hepburn visiting diamonds, you’re an office gal visiting a $30 writing tray because you made some questionable career decisions immediately after college. What’s not to like, right?
