Day 1

So far, so good;  I personally have no huge desire to go buy anything new.  But in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention I did “stock up on a few things.”  I really did try to resist the urge (because doesn’t that really defeat the purpose? Kerry, I mean really), but the impending cloud of not buying anything new for an entire year transformed me into this sort of crazed modern day hunter gatherer.

 “I draw the line at used underwear,” said my husband after I outlined the project.   “Really?  That’s your input?” I thought.  I actually would have shouted this at him, but I was trying to be particularly nice to him at that time since he was leaving for some dangerous country soon where he might routinely get sand in his eyes, or fired upon, or both.

Anyway, I found this particularly interesting given that in the ten years plus years we have been married, I have never known him to actually purchase a new pair of underwear.  They just show up in his drawer as if they are reproducing through fission.  So, I am not sure what prompted his sudden interest in the household’s undergarments. But that was his contribution.

To start this project off on a harmonious and, “properly sanitary”, note, I did go out and buy everyone new underwear.

This included a trip to the home of the anorexic angel to buy a new bra.  It was time, the other ones had stopped doing their job of lifting and were more “just hanging out”.

There I told a diminutive salesclerk my size.  At this point she peered at me over her glasses and started twisting the measuring tape wrapped around her neck in a moderately threatening way.  She gave me a pitying look and said, “Have you ever been professionally fitted?”

So, this is how I came to be standing in the dressing room with a tiny woman of undetermined Asian origin with her fingers down the top of my bra  admonishing me, “gaps, you don’t want gaps.”  That last line was probably racist since while I meant Asian as a descriptor for how weird the situation was but in reality ANY woman regardless of national origin with her hand in my bra would have been odd. On the up side, I am apparently one cup size larger than I thought I was.

It is with some horror that I realize that my very first blog post about a year free from consumerism is about BUYING THINGS.  I’ve got to get better at this…