Dear random product that I am currently contemplating buying in the store,
I don't need you. I really don't need you, but I want you. Because I want you, I have somehow started to convince myself that I, in fact, do need you. What is your purpose? Many things, or nothing at all. It is just simply the fact that now that I have you on my mind, I can't leave without you.
When you are a shopaholic like myself, you go through stages while you are in the store. These stages help you to make all of your decisions—both good and bad. You contemplate, you put it back, pick it back up and truly do some serious self-convincing. There are 12 stages to convincing yourself to buy an item when you are a shopaholic:
Stage 1: You walk into the store with an exact list. You are getting three things: toilet paper, cat food and milk. You have told yourself that you cannot and will not buy anything other than those few things.
Stage 2: You find the item that you weren't thinking about or maybe something you didn't even know existed, and become fixated on it.
Stage 3: You stand there and contemplate whether or not the item is necessary to your life.
Stage 4: You check your bank account to make sure that if you do, in fact, decide to make that purchase, you won't be completely broke.
Stage 5: You stand there contemplating a little longer, and as you are standing there, you have so many thoughts about everything else in the world and decide to put it back.
Stage 6: You walk around the store for a little while longer, getting what you actually came for, but you just can't seem to get that one little thing off your mind.
Stage 7: You go back to look at it, you do a little more convincing and then you finally throw it in your basket.
Stage 8: As you walk around the store some more, you are thinking to yourself about all the wonderful, new things that this purchase will bring to your life.
Stage 9: You have circled the store, yet again, and now you are revisiting the area in which you have discovered the purchase of a lifetime (this shopping trip). You contemplate your purchase one last time.
Stage 10: You're standing in line to pay, trying not to think of the consequences that this purchase could have.
Stage 11: Well, now you have come off that shopping high and you realized that your purchase might not have been the best idea, and you could have really used the money—but let's face it, you're not going to return it.
Stage 12: You're on the way home right now and all of the sudden, the guilt in you starts to rise.
Oh well, you're a shopaholic and you are proud. You spend money where it is completely unnecessary but love the adrenaline rush that you get. But let's get real, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one.
