Is it any wonder we have gross national debt when the streets are lined with upscale and beyond ridiculous pricey shops to tempt our weaknesses for splurging? My willpower is strong knowing my bankroll won’t buy me crumbs at the corner bakery. The only time I gave in to an excessive price tag, I was severely dazed on allergy elixirs. Or maybe it was the store playing Little Anthony and The Imperials Going out of my head over you and my pure loss of self-control. I can’t remember which. But I can assure you I don’t go all frothy at the mouth looking at Stuart Weitzman diamond studded stilettos, and I’m far from trying to play catch up with Imelda Marcos. I tried not to hurt myself much by watching Robin Leach and his Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I can’t even fall prey to such frivolity with all the passionate pairs provided by Payless without sending my Visa into seismic spasms. Prior to this, and prior to that, my Bentleywas never waiting at the curb, at least not in this lifetime.

Consumer culture is today’s seduction and the modern garden of Eden. It is hard easing the agonies of attractions associated with marketing. Audio programs and brainwave libraries don’t neutralize our desires, but promise to super charge us towards more spending at the low, low price of a mortgage payment, and interest the size of two more mortgage payments. Many have harmed themselves by those indulgences with huge credit card bills that follow a month later. Just thinking of squandering that kind of legal tender feels like my head is in a vice. I must use sagacious forbearance towards a stirred conscience while entertaining thoughts of impulse buying. I doubt that I really need those Bo Derek beaded cornrows or an exotic parrot. But how can I justify being a fan of frugality when I can see and practically taste coconut lobster? I have already brought my breakfast cost down to forty cents a day buying doughnuts in bulk. But let’s not get started on that whole other admission of guilt. I just know my family shrieks with delight that I own a Costco card and can bring home mass quantities of fritters, and toilet bowl cleaners.

I blame it all on the Beatles. There was one HARD DAYS NIGHT as a teen, after pushing my way through fads till I got hypnotized into hippie styles and abolished one whole paycheck, arriving home with only three cents in my pocket. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER! My sister spent so much money on fad fashions herself that to avoid my parent’s lividness, SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW! Storefronts might as well have signs while I peruse their perimeters that read, PLEASE, PLEASE ME WHOA YEAH, LIKE I PLEASE YOU! If I dare step out of my house on a DAY TRIPPER and am headed towards a mall for another MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, it would be much safer wearing an eye mask for comfort from any pressure put on my retinas. I should leave my purse at home when it cries out I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND. Whether coming by way of a YELLOW SUBMARINE or ABBEY ROAD, there are temptations within every square foot of this planet. However, the fab four did teach me though that MONEY CAN’T BUY ME LOVE. But I do wonder, will I have a stroke if I become broke…… WHEN I’M SIXTY FOUR?

I wish I could do it all, and have it all. It wears me out living under limited dollar duress and trying to keep up with the Jones’s. I don’t live in a house with maids and polished marble like some people I know. And I don’t live in the Outback with an incentive to outrun Aussies and tasmanian devils to the malls just to keep up with their compulsiveness. My logical side tells me I should not be lured into living in a Barbie world with all her accessories. My best accessories are wine stains and migraines. Vendors always want us adding sizzle to their slumping economies by turning us into those effervescent giddy shoppers, at least until buyers remorse sets in.

Anyone who says they can do it all should be under scrutiny and subjected to a lie detector test.

And have it all? Sure, if you’re a Hilton.