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When Consumer Spending Goes Wrong
2004-06-19
Tuesday is Bigfoot�s 21st birthday and until this afternoon I still had no gift for him. It was getting to a point where I was slowly setting him for accepting that he may not receive anything at all due to my lack of funds. Usually, even if I don�t have paper money and at most times I don�t, I still have the credit cards, which my mother pays the bills for. On Wednesday I headed out to Manhattan to buy my train ticket ($100 charged to MasterCard), which left me with about 90 dollars on the card to go and spend on his gift.I soon realized midtown Manhattan doesn�t really offer any stores that carry perfect gifts for 21-year-old guys, especially the ones who aren�t into Gucci, Prada or Burberry. However, it offers lots of choices for a 20-year-old girl who is lacking quality clothing. H&M clothing is store is God sent for cheap quality clothing, so as I decided to browse around as my break from browsing for Bigfoot�s gifts, I guess I got carried away. Shopping is supposed to be a relief from stress but once all my items got ringed up at the register the stress that I was so trying to escape from just multiplied as my eyes saw the total. $88 dollars charged to the card leaving $2 dollars on it. Although well dressed, I felt absolutely horrible.
�I really tried finding you something.� I explained to him. �Just a lot of clothing stores got in my way.� He seemed understanding about it but I still found it unacceptable to be going there empty handed. I had $30 dollars of spending money set aside for the week that I�ll be spending with him. I was considering spending it on the gift but that would make me reliant on Bigfoot for any expenses during the week. My mother, ignorant to all the problems made a nice gesture of handing me a nice amount of extra spending money and just like that the problem was solved. I headed to Best Buy this afternoon, found a sale on The Simpson�s Seasons DVD and quickly snagged it up. I know it�s something he wanted for a while.
The moral of this story is to never shop in midtown Manhattan for someone other than yourself while secretly eyeing the items that you want.