for the poor saps out there...

Part of my day today was spent at the outlet stores in Castle Rock, CO. A great place to get ones Christmas shopping done with some great sales in a pretty scenic location. First, we hit the Columbia outlet store. With Columbia really picking up the slack on their production of technical outdoor clothing over the past few years, this can be a great place to pick up a few needed pieces. We cruised through there for about 15 minutes - time well spent.

But then IT hit me...

I have a chronic, recurring case of Male Shopping Sickness. After about 20 minutes of shopping or 20 seconds at selected retailers (BBB, B&BW, GAP, OLD NAVY...) my head begins to feel heavy, legs weak, attention span = zero, giant yawns begin to overtake my face, and a quiet contempt begins to form for the wide spread commercialism that over takes our society.

I understand that people need to be clothed, and that one might as well enjoy putting together a unique, self-expressive outfit, but lets get serious people...is all of this really necessary? American Eagle has been trying to sell me the exact same blue and white, checkered button down shirt for over a decade!! The only thing that changes is now the shirt may be fetching them 200% profit, as opposed to the humble 175% earnings of the 1990's. Although that may be a bit of an inflated figure, such cheaply made clothing should not fetch such a price. It makes me want to open a mall kiosk down at Park Meadows where I sell sacks of dog crap for $50.00 because a pooch named "Hollister" put out a seasonal limited batch!

Maybe I am overreacting, but something inside of me does not sit right in the aforementioned situations. I realize, I too am part of the problem here, but long to be part of the solution.
Maybe next Christmas I'll buy everyone shares in a third world mirco-finance lending company, or send goats named Steve, Andrew, and Peter to families in Indonesia.

Sent from my iPhone ;)