Target Hit

Lately I have been living dollar to dollar, which I think is fine. I'm go to a Jesuit university, I'm unemployed, and I really don't expect to be saving much from the grocery allowance I get a week from my saviors, Mom and Dad. So, naturally, I rarely ever get to shop or even feel the will to go shopping. The thought of spending more than twenty dollars at one time makes me cringe. Yesterday was my breaking point. I was on the train on my way home from class downtown and I decided to get off a few stops before my home (Granville), and pop into a Target. You see, I really needed a laundry basket. My sad excuse of a closet has been literally overflowing with dirty clothes ever since I moved in. I had forgotten to bring a laundry basket and never got around to purchasing one until yesterday. So I was walking around Target and I found my laundry basket, which was on clearance! Then I saw the kitchen aisle, and everything went downhill from there. I was lost in the shiny array of pots, pans, and cooking accessories. You see, everything in a department store is designed to make you buy. Everything from what's placed on the end caps of the aisle, to the proximity of Laundry needs, to Kitchen items, to picture frames, to art supplies to electronics. Its just a maze. A maze of temptations that encourages your to buy things we have lived without forever and then buy more and more of these unnecessary items until we are at the cash register with everything you could possibly carry in your two pathetic arms and are without a shred of self-respect. I left with $7 in my bank account. Ironically, my last purchase of the day was a piggy bank that was $12.99. This didn't make sense to me this morning when I looked at the receipt. Why was I paying a major corporation to sell me a product that was useless until I filled it with money that I no longer had, I couldn't make sense of.

Before you start throwing tomatoes at me.. I just came back from returning all but two of the items I bought.

I am now left with a laundry basket, and a notebook for writing.

There is milk in my refrigerator now and I feel much better.

Sanity restored,
MW