Consume! Consume!

I went to Target with Laura yesterday. We were looking for an inflatable pool for her back patio. When it hit 90 degrees, she started having visions of pool parties, of her serving cool white wine to friends lounging in her back yard in the pool.

It sounded delicious.

Since it is almost the end of summer, however, pickings are slim. There was a Spiderman pool, but it was too small, and just not, well, quite what she had in mind for grown up backyard parties. In fact, three of the options were just too small. And then there was one enormous one. Too big. Bigger than her back yard. The idea of having a big pool with a ladder in the back of a city row house is pretty amusing. And impossible.

So then we started thinking. Maybe she should just buy an inflatable mattress and hose her guests down. We loved this imaginary scenario.

She'd invite you over, and invite you to seat yourself on the air mattress. And she'd offer you an hors d'oeuvre. And just as you were about to take a bite, psshhhht! with the hose!

You might really irritate your friends, but you could get a great laugh out of it.

I almost never go to Target, and going reminds me of when I was a kid and we'd come back to the US in the summer. Going to the grocery store felt like going to an amusement park.

"Mama! Look! Look at all the cereal! Oooh! Cookies! In a box!"

We just didn't have a lot of packaged products when we were growing up in Bangladesh.

My brother and I would have the best time running up and down the aisles. All the colors! Pretty, shiny, sparkly! All the candy! All the food we never knew about! We had no idea what we were missing out! Until we were in America!

Laura and I gave up on the pool and headed instead to snacks and makeup - two of my favorite sections of any store. We wound up leaving with 45 different kinds of snacks and some fun cosmetics. In other words, nothing we came for, nor anything we really needed.

There is something about consumption that's temporarily energizing. It's really weird. And when there are so many things to choose from, it's so easy to think, ooh, I'll just try one of each!