consumption

Author Bingaman-Burt pays penance by drawing all the things she's charged on her credit cards - sunglasses, coffee filters, french fries, diet Coke, shoes and a swan applique. The list goes on as her credit card debt rises. She even draws her monthly statements complete with her payment and interest rates. I'm fascinated with my fascination for Kate's mundane purchases. Oh, what tangled webs we weave with our obsessive need to acquire.

I picked this book out because of my enduring fascination with how the economic situation got to where it is today.  I’m a major tightwad…a saver against that inevitable rainy day, when I lose my job, my health, or my home.  Being rather fearful, I could never fully enjoy the benefits of the credit driven, leveraged pleasures of consumption.  (I still have and use the bath towels I received at my bridal shower three decades ago.)  And, naturally enough, I tend to defend my tightfistedness with certain sanctimoniousness.  Remember when the “sensible cloth coat” had nothing to do with animal