A Confession About Obsession.

voltee ♦ September 28, 2010 ♦ 6 Comments

Item: Sweater Color/Fabric: Tan, acrylic/wool/nylon Designer: Abercrombie and Fitch Years Owned: 12
Maybe you haven’t yet noticed, but I have an obsession. I’m not obsessed with clothes, necessarily. I’m more obsessed with the acquisition. One could say that I have an obsession with possession.
Well, even that doesn’t exactly cover it. It’s not entirely the possession of things, it’s the possessing them at ridiculously low prices. It’s the pursuit, the luck of being in the right place in the right time, of finding a diamond where others see only a lump of coal. It’s the quest, the seeking the biggest discount, and then the exhilaration and the triumph when I find something for 50, 75, or 95% off. Sometimes I think I like the conquest more than I like the actual piece of clothing I get.
It’s gotten so bad that I honestly can’t remember the last time I paid full price for a garment. It just doesn’t mean the same thing to me. Who wants to just walk into a store and hand over money? Where is the challenge in that?
The last time I paid full price for something might very well be this sweater. And Nate’s apartment had to burn down in order for me to do it.
It was sometime during my freshman year of college. The most tumultuous year of my life, for way too many reasons. Nate and I were doing the long distance thing; he went to Michigan State and I went to Bowling Green in Ohio. We were only about two hours apart, but it felt like an ocean. Especially when he called me one day after classes saying there had been a fire in his apartment. No one was hurt, thankfully, but the firemen had to fight the fire in Nate’s room, because of its strategic location. Pretty much everything he owned, which wasn’t that much in those days, was ruined from the toxic combination of water and smoke damage.
He was given a check from his insurance in a pretty speedy manner, for that sort of thing, to buy new clothes. I can’t remember exactly how much they gave him, but it seemed like a sum fit for a king’s wardrobe. Today I’m sure I could lay waste to that much in a few hours at Marshall’s.
But Nate couldn’t spend it all, so the next time I came to visit, I got to go on a little shopping spree. I went to the most expensive and luxurious store i could think of, Abercrombie and Fitch. And I picked out the most expensive sweater I could find, and I paid full price for it. And I felt sick about it for days.
Twelve years later, I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth from it. I think. I can’t really think of a specific occasion where I wore this. But I know it happened, and more than once. It’s just sort of an awkward length, and a little bit on the itchy side. And kind of too chunky for my tastes nowadays. But I still like it. I think it looks great on Trixie. To be honest, I don’t think it looks as good on me. I have been debating letting this one go for years now, but I just can’t quite bring myself to do it. I always decide it would be nice if I ever go skiing someday. Right?

**This is gone.  It went to my sister.  I don’t even miss it!