Unabrow by Una LaMarche

Author:Una LaMarche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

Shopping for Godot

Sometimes it feels like I’ve spent my entire life searching for that elusive something that will finally make me truly happy. I’ve looked everywhere: J.Crew, the Sharper Image, IKEA . . . even in the weird Vermont Country Store catalog I get every Christmas that somehow sells both fruitcakes and dildos. But I still haven’t found that holy grail of modern capitalist lust: the one product that will forever make me whole. I know it’s out there somewhere and that I must possess it. In this way it’s kind of like Frodo’s ring, and I am Gollum, only with pastier skin and less patience.

In 1986, I thought I had found it in the She-Ra Princess of Power Crystal Castle, and for weeks I took to strutting around my house the way I figure people like Mark Zuckerberg and Willow Smith—people who’ve struck gold early in life—must walk everywhere they go, thinking, I’ve got it made. From here on out, it’s nothing but frosted Pop-Tarts and world domination. Alas, my ennui returned shortly thereafter, and I sold my She-Ra castle at a yard sale for eight dollars.

Year after year, the story has always been the same: covet, obtain, discard. I never had a favorite toy because there was always something new on the horizon, and the ones I’d grown tired of sat unplayed with on a shelf like a bored, plastic harem.

In retrospect this behavior probably predicted my credit card abuse as an adult. Sometimes, as I’m drifting off to sleep, I imagine conversations—and maybe even entire training seminars—about me that are happening at the American Express headquarters:

Specialist #1: Hey, do you have a minute? I’m worried about Una.

Specialist #2: Why, did she buy another set of silk gaucho pants from Anthropologie on fire sale?

Specialist #1: No . . . but she paid her bill on March 16, for a total of $987.54, and as of yesterday she’s only re-spent $614.03.

Specialist #2: Oh, my God. It’s been three days and she hasn’t maxed out yet?

Specialist #1: I know, right? That’s not like her.

Specialist #2: Do you think she died?

Specialist #1: Oh, man, she did just buy a stud finder.

Specialist #2: Nah, I don’t think those are sharp, and also, I’m pretty sure that charge was a porn site.

Specialist #1: I’m still worried.

Specialist #2: Okay. Send her an e-mail offer for twenty dollars off the entire set of Mattel Beverly Hills, 90210 dolls and if she doesn’t place an order within the hour, I’ll make an anonymous 911 call.

Yes, I have a little bit of a problem. Some call it consumerism, some call it greed, some call it hoarding. I call it hope, with interest.

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