Things a Person Doesn't Really Need

This time of year can frustrate me.

Going to stores grates on my nerves. They are divided into sections: Gifts under $10. Gifts under $20. Gifts under $50.

Because we all know of the *obligation* to buy a gift. Any gift, it doesn't matter what it is--as long as it's within the designated parameters (that is, price range). It's not about the joy of giving. It's not about finding the perfect expression of your love for someone. It's not about buying something for someone because it just "screams their name." It's not about filling a need for another.

And as I look at the ludicrous items littering the aisles, it's as if the manufacturers are just dreaming up ridiculous, unnecessary items to meet the need our materialistic society has to get more "stuff" or have the "latest, greatest thing".


Meanwhile, graphics like this simply make my heart hurt.

In case you missed this great quote from The Poisonwood Bible:

When I go with them to the grocery, they are boggled and frightened and secretly scornful, I think. Of course they are. I remember how it was at first: dazzling warehouses buzzing with light, where entire shelves boast nothing but hair spray, tooth-whitening cream, and foot powders. It is as if our (shallow, selfish sister) had been left suddenly in charge of everything.

'What is that, Auntie? And that?" (the child) asks: a pink jar of cream for removing hair, a can of fragrance to spray on the carpet, stacks of lidded containers the same size as the jars we throw away each day.

'They're things a person doesn't really need.'

'But, Auntie, how can there be so many kinds of things a person doesn't really need?'

I can think of no honorable answer. Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste, while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining? There is nothing about the United States I can really explain to this child of another world (441).