How do I love thee, Consumerism?

Hannah’s head is full of the glamours of shopping these days. Which is funny, because when I take her shopping—for instance, for school clothes—she acts like I have devised a new method of torture involving a bank card and a department store.

I blame her infatuation on the Barbie web site. Most of the games and video clips revolve around malls and shopping. *gag* I try to point out the vapidity of the whole set-up, but she won’t hear a word against her beloved Barbie overlord web site.

But she also has a friend whose family is in a much higher income-tax bracket than us, and who have a correspondingly more friendly attitude to consumerism. I myself am not completely opposed to buying things, but

1. we live in a smallish apartment that would fill up quickly,
and 2. I firmly believe in living within your means.

Besides, past evidence has shown that Hannah loves and plays with new toys for about 2 days before they are relegated to the toy heap under her play-bed. So it seems silly to keep adding to the heap, especially since I’m the only one who ever tackles the heap to prevent it from taking over her whole room.

That being said, I like to see the kinds of things that are available to buy, or that other people have bought. For instance, I saw a woman wearing sandals with a spring where the heel would normally be. *A spring.* Considering the oddly stiff way she was walking, I don’t think the spring was really adding to the comfort-level and wearability of the sandals.

I’m sure that old-school Adidas wouldn’t have those issues, but the pair I saw in Kermit-green with Mr. The Frog himself on them might drive the wearer mad or temporarily blind. When looking for the above link, I discovered that they also sell a Miss Piggy version. I like my Muppets, the seven dwarves know, but that is just going too far.

The one item I coveted desperately, but that disappeared from the window display by the following week, was a set of yard-gnome candles. One was pink and the other apple-green. They were full-sized, so about 10 inches tall. If anyone spots a yard-gnome cookie jar, let me know, because that would satisfy two of my shopping cravings in one go.