Voucher Vulture

I realise it's been a long time since I've blogged long and seriously about anything apart from cash-related whining. This is partially because the awareness that anything I say here can and will be used against me -- especially if it's intensely personal and clashes with someone else's system of priorities -- acts as a good dampener. XT is doing her KI IS on self-censorship, and she was very clever because I'm sure everyone, especially since all that Wee Shu Min rubbish, does it on their blog now (if not already everywhere else). Usually if I'm angry at something, like myself, I do some work or go to sleep. Everything is usually fine by the next morning.

But I thought this one deserved some attention, even if it IS cash-related whining. In fact, it is cash-related whining on an unprecedented scale, except that this time the problem of cash is of secondary importance compared to the issue at hand. To summarise: I've been buying lots of things lately. Not ALL of them are frivolous. Except that yesterday, looking at one particularly frivolous (though pretty) purchase on the last leg of a bus journey home at the end of a noisy day, I happened to remark that I was going to have to resolve to stop spending.

'You always say that,' said Grace.

Well, she's right. Look at the previous posts and see how many times I've sworn not to touch my money again at the sight of an exciting hat. That's excluding the private resolutions that don't make it onto the blog OR out of that fleeting moment of guilt. Hooray. No, don't tell me how many there are.

But the connotations are wrong. This time is slightly, but significantly, different. My previous resolutions were engendered from dismay at my shrinking hoard of private moolah and a delicious guilt at my audacity for spending so much (even if the purchases aren't entirely frivolous). This one wasn't a resolution in the first place. It was the acknowledgement of a nasty feeling that had been humping me all afternoon. i.e. I have had enough of being a statistically probable by-product of a booming capitalist economy.

I know I will never be tired of music, but if shopping were the food of love I am surfeit of it. All that comes after that is cloyment and the revolt. This after a week's worth of excited consumption, in which my funds dwindled faster than a criticised poseur's self-esteem. I enjoyed it while it lasted, and the finds were very good. It's just except that it's about time I stopped. Enough IS. This time the urge to stop buying things is not so much out of a self-imposed -- hence fallible -- guilty determination as of a fatigue, if one will, of all things that so much as dare to show themselves hanging off a mannequin or being coyly seductive through a shop window. It's not a very extreme reaction, because I'm still more than willing to buy something frivolous which I really like, but it's timely enough that I can screw the Great Singapore Sale and it's frippery and go back to being antisocial and miserly. There is, after all, work to do, friends to gabble with, a competition to win, and good food to eat.

Glad I've got it over and done with, and will attempt to spend most of the next two weeks studying. Going to NUS library tomorrow to see what they will cough up.

On the other hand, Kinokuniya refuses to. They don't allow you to order comics, even if they aren't stocking them in the shelves any more. That is simply counterproductive. It's as if they are trying to turn me apostate and shove me into the wide arms of Borders membership -- unless Borders is also party to this ridiculous policy. Bah.

But I still AM looking forward to getting some books, for I forsee good vouchers in the near future. Don't tell you why.



P.S. You are reading of the proud owner of seven hats. She is still a proud owner of seven hats, although she is likely not to expand her collection soon. She taints the minds of impressionable seniors by encouraging them all to buy hats.