Shopaholics, Big Spenders and People in Debt, Getting Smacked by Economic Reality

By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted January 1, 2009.

And the language of advertising is the language of addiction. Consumer culture breeds us to see brands as nations, logos as flags. In the process, we lose track of what is worth what. Eschewing his favorite things, places and people, MacDonald was unnerved by his newfound free time. What to do that costs nothing? For "a wildly irresponsible man on a budget," even leisurely strolls can be tough. One must sidestep old hangouts where "someone might spot me and lure me inside." On such walks, "everything reminded me of what I couldn't do. Hey, look over there. Another bar I can't drink at. The coffee shop. The lemonade stand. The kiosk that sells hot dogs wrapped in soft pretzels. Bad news." The supermarket where he bought his lentils, tuna, white bread and cheap cheese is "hell on earth … built to serve the influx of Yuppies paying top dollar" who "demanded a salad bar, a hot bar, green tomatoes, Black Angus beef, fresh white asparagus, yellowfin tuna, white albacore tuna, 78 varieties of orange juice, and service with a smile. A Starbucks in the store, right next to the checkout lanes." At Easter time: "Shrimp -- fresh, frozen and steamed. Enormous hams. Tiny hams. Pre-sliced. Spiral-sliced. Free-range honey-baked hams. … So many marshmallow Peeps that it made my nuts ache just looking." Rapid gentrification saw developers opening new businesses in the long-depressed former factory district: "a Borders bookstore. A tuxedo shop. A barbershop staffed with young, large-breasted Australian chicks who charged $35 for a high-and-tight. Why not? It was the year 2000, and all was well. Only it wasn't anymore."

MacDonald blamed no one for his debt but himself, and expected no one but himself to bail him out. Learning to save money was a matter of resolve, resourcefulness and personal responsibility. Up until that point in his life, "I had never actually failed. As fat as I was, I had never gone on a diet. So I had never failed to stick to one. As far as finances go, yeah, I was broke. But that was also by choice, in a way. I never applied for a job and failed to get it." On the other hand, "making a plan and not sticking to it? That's a failure."

Those nuts would just have to stay sore.

As a sticker-shocked publishing industry lurches crisis-ward in tatters, along with the rest of the media, desperate to stay solvent and relevant, among what few books will be published in the coming years will be more how-did-we-get-here books like this. You can bet on it. But don't. You can't afford to bet.

So how did we get here? I shouldn't say we. I don't mean me. Hopefully, I don't mean you, too. I've never been a spender. I was the one who pocketed pennies I found on the playground as my primary-school pals chorused, "Cheap Jew." Where did they learn that? From free-spending parents with big credit-card bills? I never learned to like shopping. Anywhere but in thrift stores, it still fills me with dread.

My friend Megan was different. She lived to shop. She'd been raised with privilege, having attended Barack Obama's exclusive Honolulu prep-school alma mater, Punahou, but she wasn't on scholarship, and he was. She was a Phi Beta Kappa University of California, Berkeley, graduate. Nonetheless, Megan was always broke. She'd been bankrupt once already, but kept on shopping. She always had to have three copies in assorted colors of things she saw in movies and magazines. Tiger-striped cushions. Creme de menthe creampuffs. The boots from Kill Bill. She loved new things as few can love them, placing her latest purchases on the novena-studded nightstand that doubled as an altar and examining each item with a shaky smile, fighting off those first pangs of postjag ennui and postjag regret that always welled up within a day or two. Sometimes, she would call me in the middle of the night asking not for loans -- though she needed those -- but for advice. As we spoke, she stroked the beaded purse, the pasta maker or the pleather skirt, its other-colored duplicates lined up on the nightstand like a rebuke.

She would say: "But I waaaaanted it."

I would say: "You just need to learn to go without."

And I could picture her winding her hair -- her hip-length hair whose color she paid a stylist several hundred bucks every two months to change from burgundy to gold to black and back -- around her thumb.

I waaaaaanted it, she said: high-pitched, trembling, like an electric bird.

Megan used to say that if she didn't shop as much as she did, she'd feel deprived. That was the word she used. When I suggested that she relinquish certain luxuries and adopt free or cheap alternatives (library DVDs, day-old rolls, Revlon ColorSilk), she sulked and said she would not sacrifice. That was the other word she used. "I did too much of that, growing up Catholic." She was willing to pay whatever products cost, and I was not. Retail prices pretty much always appalled me, and when this became the country of $30 steak dinners, the country in which concert tickets to see washed-up rock stars topped $200, it became a country I no longer recognized. That my fellow citizens were ready and willing to part with that kind of cash for sheer pleasure has always divided me from them, made me ever more a recluse.

See more stories tagged with: urban hermit, shopaholic

Anneli Rufus is the author of several books, including Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto.

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