How I Will Not Be Helping With Worldwide Economic Recovery

My glasses broke. I used to be a hardcore contact lens wearer (Slept in them! Only cleaned them once a week! Courted all forms of eye funk!) until I entered the golden gates of middle aged-ness and had to begin wearing bifocals - the no line ones. I do have to keep some self-delusion of my youth and hipness. My glasses are half frames - the type that have the lens held in on the bottom with a thin plastic wire that's dug into the rim of the lens and when that little plastic wire popped off I went into a shit hemorrhage panic because I had no idea where my old glasses were located. I went around in my prescription sunglasses, bearing a striking resemblance to Roy Orbison for my efforts until I was able to locate a spare pair of regular glasses. Not my newer old pair but the pair I bought about 12 years ago and which make me bear a striking resemblance to Harry Potter.

As I don't wish to look like either a dead singer or a fictional teenage wizard I went down to my optician to have my glasses fixed. While I was there I thought I'd also take advantage of the special offer where I can get a complete pair of bifocal glasses for 99€. Perfect for me because:

A. I wouldn't mind having another pair of glasses just for a change of pace.
B. This is the fourth time I've had to have these glasses fixed - having back ups that are not only bifocals but also don't make me look like an ass would be nice.
C. I'm an incredible cheap-ass and I'd rather pay 99€ for spare glasses than the 350€ I paid for the ones that keep breaking.

I picked out a pair of frames, the optician checked my eyes to see if my prescription changed in the last 2 1/2 years (it hadn't), and as we sat down for him to make out the order he told me that my broken glasses had extra super special lenses with this and that crap on them.

I know dude. That's why the SOBs cost me 350€. We're sticking to the 99€ limit.

And my broken glasses have lighter lenses!

99€, fella. Stick to the program. Cheap-ass is seated here before you.

In reality I really would like to have the extra super special light lenses but there's nothing wrong with my broken glasses...er....if you overlook the broken part...and I can't justify spending more money than necessary for something that's essentially a luxury for me. One pair of functional glasses = necessary. Two pair = unnecessary until I am reincarnated as Elton John.

After I left I walked around the mall and went to a shop in search of new clothes. Every shop screams that their wares are on sale and in this particular shop everything was 30% off. I looked around and found a wool coat that was nice and then a cardigan and then a tunic top and a blouse and there was a nice pair of pants that I liked and the sales lady was practically giddy as she showed me to a dressing room.

I hung everything up on a hook, took off my jacket and stared at the clothes before me. What was I doing? I don't really need new clothes. I have a wool coat that I don't wear now. Two, in fact. A cardigan? I hate sweaters! And I'm up to my eyes in tops and blouses. Sure, it was all on sale and 30% would be nice but not buying them at all would save me even more. Why was I going to spend money on stuff I really didn't need?

And I didn't feel like trying it all on anyway. Not wanting to try on clothes is the biggest incentive of all for not buying something. It's related to how I keep from overbuying at the supermarket. I often judge how much I'll buy based on how heavy it'll all end up being when I drag it up to my apartment.

The world's economy is going to have to rely on someone else to help right things. I'm simply too cheap and lazy to make the effort.