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Land of the Free, Home of the Crap
Archive
Would it surprise you to know I own two televisions, three VCRs, and a DVD player? God knows it surprises me every time I walk into my living room. Two TVs, two, for God’s sake, and I don’t even particularly like the boob tube!
I guess I could get really technical and mention most of these gadgets actually belong to my partner, the electronic-worshipping, surge-protector-reliant, Megahertz-sucking technophile. Why bother, though, when I know I’m just as guilty for collecting non-technological gewgaws like lint in a dryer filter?
Truth is, I own too much crap.
The route to this blinding epiphany launched when I began packing to attend grad school in the golden state. I got my first twinkling when I noticed the more boxes I filled, the less I remembered what I had stuffed into them. The notion really took root when I knocked over the mystery box stuffed in the back of the hall closet and four mismatched mittens tumbled out. Finally, after extracting the fourth bottle of lavender bubble bath from under the sink, it struck me that no one really needs to smell that fresh. Maybe, just maybe I had too much.
After all, it’s hard to preach an ascetic lifestyle of education, charity, and social service with six different kinds of mustard crowding the refrigerator shelves.
I’m willing to shoulder some of the blame for this embarrassing little situation, but in my own defense, I live in an acquisitive culture. The economic culture into which I awaken every day keeps itself vital by making us feel inadequate, less than, and pointless without stuff to give us shape and meaning. It manufactures and then feeds off our insecurities. Skeptical? Just tune into a few commercials (if you don’t own a TV, I can loan you one). According to their glossy, Technicolor-messages, we were born incomplete. We are, therefore we lack. But no worry, commercials soothe us; you too, can struggle to rise above your basic inadequacy merely by treading the Herbal Essences-, Calvin Klein-, Pentium processor, and BMW-lined path to OK-ness.
I should have made the connection a little earlier, like, say, when I noticed that every time I leave work a grump, I scurry to the nearest ice cream parlor. Go ahead and scream about comfort food, but it’s not the consumption that delights me as much as the whole purchasing process. For the five minutes it takes me decide on an ice cream flavor and return with it to my car, I am all-powerful. My choices rule the land, my whims manifest into instant tangibles; I am a goddess for the low, low price of $1.50.
Why else would dollar stores seduce us so? We file into those tight aisles and finger those useless widgets, desperate for the retail power trip, queens and kings of our plastic kingdoms.
Moving from a small apartment to a tiny studio requires a little scaling down; I’m just not so sure I have room for my stuffed animal and bumper sticker collections, two complete sets of dishes, and my mother’s wicker rocking chair. So, like almost everyone else in this society at some point, I now find myself cycling from the buying to the purging stage. You know the routine, those periodic exorcisms of our garages, attics, basements, and storage sheds that usually climax in grand garage sales and trips to Good Will.
As I strip down to the essentials, I can only hope this represents a new beginning and the end of pumping my lifeblood into the capitalistic leech. I hope to tune out the voices that screech of my inadequacies and stop seeking serenity in aromatherapy candles, company in VCR tapes, and identity in bumper stickers.
This time, I plan to remain crap-free.