Confessions of a Shopaholic
No, I’m not speaking of myself, as I am rather practical and thrifty when it comes to shopping, but rather of the book by Sophie Kinsella.
My friend Brandy lent me this book last Sunday, along with the other two books which complete the trilogy. I knew they were probably good books, being as popular as they seem to be, but I figured I probably wouldn’t enjoy them quite as much as my friend Brandy, who is quite an accomplished shopper. But I was somewhat surprised to find it impossible to put the book down once I had started, which was slightly unfortunate, given that I had started to read it Monday night at 12:30am. So I didn’t get to bed until 4am or so. What’s worse is that Tuesday and Wednesday nights I read each of the other books, going to bed around the same time. Luckily I have a very flexible workplace, and can come in pretty late, though I feel guilty every time I do (which means I feel guilty almost every day - I’m quite the night owl).
It’s funny I liked the books as much as I did. The heroine has very little common sense, at least when it comes to money, and has an alarming tendency to get caught up in huge lies. But the writing is so amusing and engaging, and you find yourself empathizing with her and feeling sorry for her, even when you just want to yell at her. I can even find myself identifying with her misguided approach to her problems - just ignore them and hopefully they’ll go away by themselves. I’m not so bad as that, but sometimes I do have to fight the urge just to not think about something until it resolves itself. Actually, for me it seems to work sometimes! But in my case, I tend to do this more with decisions than with bills (though I have the bad habit of forgetting to pay them until they’re past due - stupid late fees). For example, in high school, I was getting deluged with college brochures. After the first week or so of this, I got thoroughly sick of thinking about all those options, and sort of put it all from my mind. I ended up missing a lot of deadlines for applications this way, but that was a way of narrowing my choices, at least! Though the college I ended up going with (MIT) was one I happened to apply to “Early Action”, so maybe that isn’t such a great example after all. Either way, the urge to bury your head in the sand until everything is out of your control is tempting sometimes.
