Sunday, August 31, 2008

Window Shopping

I went window-shopping.

I shopped for everything, but for those items in the window.

It was not my fault! I was in very encouraging company. Every time I ‘ooohed’ the smart brown bag, stocked strategically on the glass shelf, my companion nodded very understandingly.

“Leather,” she said reaching out to caress the rich brown texture. “Italian leather!” she admired.

My appreciation glinted in the greedy sheen of my eyes. Brown Italian leather, is like dark brown chocolate for the depressed mind. It works wonders!

“Pretty!” I said. The most painful understatement.

“It would hurt, wouldn’t it?” she asked looking at me and drinking in my painful expression.

“What would?” I asked, so completely baffled.

“To see someone else clutching this beauty and trotting around!” she said turning to look at the bag.

For a moment I actually picturized the situation she had so briefly described. The pain was so unbearable that five minutes later I was signing on the credit card slip spewed out by those maniacal machines at the cashier.

I walked out with a feeling of pride. I walked out poorer than I had thought I would be. I walked out with my companion who had led me to financial ruins without an agenda to do so. My companion hadn’t picked up a bag.

Brown Italian leather bags!