Things I Haven’t Bought That I Love.
What I’ve chosen to “save for later.”
Nothing works better for procrastinating or killing time or really anything than plumbing the depths of Amazon and shopping for things I think I need but probably don’t. For all the talk I do about buying things and the stress derived from those purchases, I don’t buy that much stuff. Everything I purchase is researched, thought out and debated; I will not buy shoes or a vacuum cleaner or a face wash I read about on a beauty blog unless I’ve spent at least an hour Googling user reviews. I like to know that I’m not being duped. I don’t want to return anything. I want to spend the money I’ve set out to spend, get the thing I want and move on with my day.
Amazon’s “Save for Later” section serves as a neat catalogue of my desires. I can tell immediately where I was at and what I was doing and why I was thinking about doing it from the way things are clustered. The spate of hand creams and face wash and Korean beauty products speaks to late nights perusing beauty blogs and dutifully opening tabs after zooming through a shopping list; five sweatshirts for $11 each and a new pair of leggings that I have yet to actually buy gestures towards my not-so-hidden desire to model my wardrobe after a particularly stylish toddler. I am nothing if not predictable and even more so by the things I want to buy, but haven’t just yet.
None of the things I’ve saved for later are particularly expensive or necessary — that’s why I haven’t bought them yet. The big purchases are ones that I make as easy as breathing; it’s the little ones that keep me up at night, wondering if I I’m frittering away my food budget on incense and bathrobes.
If this list were to be the last remaining artifact of my life when I died, I feel like it would be a pretty accurate representation.
- A variety of sweatshirts in muted shades of black and pink, meant to be paired with leggings in an attempt at athleisure or comfort or both.
- A silky floral robe — a “dressing gown”? — that costs not that much money but feels so dumb and impractical that I have yet to actually pull the trigger.
- These facial razors (because I read about them somewhere), this incense (same) and this “brightening peeling gel”(also same) that will remove the dead skin from my face and the crap from my pores in tiny, satisfying balls of gunk.
- An enormous fake palm tree that, if purchased, will make my living room look like a quirky dentist’s waiting room.
- A water bottle that will supposedly keep liquids cold for up to 24 hours. It costs $27.5 and given the fact that I have glasses and ice in my house, that seems like a lot.
- So many books, including but not limited to: The Debt to Pleasure; The Raw and Cooked: Adventures of a Roaming Gourmand; Saturday Night, Privilege: The Making of An Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School(might buy this one soon); Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City; In Gratitude. Please know that I already have so many books. I don’t need these.
- This clear wall-mounted fish bowl that I thought I would buy and use as storage because I read about it somewhere. I won’t. It won’t work. If I buy it, I will hang it up and it will hold checks that I’ve deposited on my banking app and garbage. I don’t need this.
- My friend put this crystal pyramid in here two years ago and given the recent turn of events, it looks like a nice thing to have around the house. Maybe I’ll get this thing, too.
