I must be about to die or something, as I have a backlog of about a week's worth of positive experiences that I haven't gotten around to writing about. Actually, one part of me already has died: the free-spending part. I actually flinched just now at the counter at Sears. That's pretty sad. I haven't been that much of a Sears shopper in my lifetime (Tarzhay all the way here), but more so over the last couple years. This is mostly to spite Bayshore's disrespect of the store--today, I noticed that the East parking lot turns into a lunar crater-scape when you approach the low-end retailer. In addition, I've heard rumors that Sears is likely to be the next headline-grabbing closure (though this was on the plane down to Arizona--who knows what difference the intervening months of prolonged recession may have made), so bargains seem especially likely. Today, though, my purchases didn't scan in at 30% or less than the tag price as they usually do, and I just couldn't do that $26 wallet--which, ironically, I could fill at the moment...
However, feeling flush isn't translating into spending. And I'm the biggest spendthrift I know! For whatever reason--as a (still) overemployed person, the reasons are less quantifiable for me than for many others--the buzz was killed in a big way earlier this year and hasn't returned. I also note that the note struck by the media has changed from trying to tell us it's our patriotic duty to spend to making frugality look like the latest and greatest bandwagon.
