Saving Money, Squandering Time

I live entirely too close to TJ Maxx. Many a night after the monkeys are tucked away, when I could snuggle up with a good book or hunker down on the mountain of ironing, the prospect of a good treasure hunt lures me up the hill.

My visits to TJ are often well rewarded: $30 designer jeans, cheap yet socially acceptable gifts, an emergency pair of swim goggles. But just as often I buy things that in the light of morning I see my way clear to returning. According to Wade I’m a recreational returner. And this ends up being a big waste of time.

The other morning I was standing in the customer service line waiting to take back an ill-conceived kitchen rug and a clearance Halloween decoration I’d realized was on clearance because no one wanted it. Also to buy this, which had tempted me since I’d passed it up the night before:

I stood in line a long time. The holdup was at the register, where the beleaguered sales clerk was on the phone with the credit card company, who was denying a customer’s card. The customer was expensively dressed and impeccably coiffed. But as she argued with the clerk, despite all her designer regalia she did not seem beautiful, or happy, or kind.

As the wait went on, my fellow bargain hunters and I started getting impatient, wondering exactly what was going on here. And I thought to myself, what was going on here? Why was I spending my time buying and returning things I did not need or really even want? I began to feel complicit in the ugly scene playing out in front of me. Deepak Chopra, my favorite slightly wacky profiteering spiritualist, says money is nothing more than a form of energy. In that context, my all-too frequent trips to TJ are proving rather costly.

When I got home with my star that now felt like an ill-gotten gain, I was glad both Wade and Scotty seemed to genuinely like it. When I put it up for Christmas, will it bring me and my family a greater sense of Peace, Joy, Noel? Unlikely. Will it remind me not to head up the hill so often? I hope so.