I can no longer go shopping. I own enough suits, jackets, slacks and shoes I'll never wear, enough underwear and socks. I can no longer go to malls, can no longer get my haircut. I own enough hairspray and hand cream. My nails look just fine. My hair will never be unhealthy again. I didn't need any of it. I didn't want any of it. But I bought it and own it and will buy it all over again unless I just stay home forever.

There are too many things for sale, too many sales people, too many men with cool clothes and stylish hair.   Too many foreign women with caressing touches and rolling tongues--each willing to stand too close and look into your eyes, never blinking, telling you how nice your cuticles could be.

They see me trying to look away. I'm looking for an exit, but the shoes that they've taken from the back of the store are right there and they really want me to buy them. They've worked so hard after all. They did exactly what their job was, nothing more. Their service wasn't all that great but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be rewarded, right?

So I buy them. They barely fit but fuck it, they're right there in the box waiting and the salesman is on his knees lacing up the left shoe to make sure I like that one as well. Unbeknownst to him, I don't like the right shoe.   There's little chance of me liking the left. He doesn't know this of course because I've not said so, I've only nodded and agreed with him when he pointed out that one-ten isn't all that much for a shoe like this.

He's right. One hundred and ten dollars isn't all that much for a pair of shoes I have no need for. A pair of shoes that don't fit all that well and can only be worn with about four percent of my clothes--though I'm going to Macys after this. Who's to say they wont have some outfits that match these shoes perfectly? And that's just it; they will or they won't, but I'll buy them anyway because a salesperson just like him will tell me to.

I'm not rich. In fact I have little disposable income, but credit cards were created with people like me in mind. Some genius psychologist realized one day while shopping with his awkward son for corduroys that his son was the ultimate spender because he couldn't say the simplest word--no.   He just didn't have the capacity to break the hearts of so many sales people by telling them that those corduroys are too tight and too blue.

Seeing this, and knowing there are probably thousands out there just like his son that simply needed the necessary financial means to say yes to everything, the entrepreneurial father created plastic money.

And so now I can buy these shoes. Now I can buy that suit from Celio , which the salesman, in all his courtesy, couldn't have hemmed for me in three days time. Never mind that the pants were too long. Never mind that I was the only customer in the store--something I now avoid entirely--and was spending six hundred dollars.

I find solace in that this salesman, the one ten isn't all that much salesman, is at least refraining from pitching the suede cleaner or leather protector or shoelace sanitizer. He seems to be a merciful god and is letting me off with just the ill-fitting sneakers, which look terrible with the jeans I wear the majority of the time--a point he chose to ignore.

This is a lot like how it all started. Or at least when I realized that this... complex existed. I was in high school and after having worked for a couple months I decided it was time to treat myself to a few things. First of those things was a new pair of shoes. So on my day off I drove to the mall and went in Foot Locker.

Growing up, all shoe shopping was done at large warehouse sports stores--the ones with common first names such as Bob's in Milford, Connecticut--whose collection of sneakers were a year or more old. Therefore this was my grand opportunity to shop where all my friends from childhood were able to shop. Where everyone else bought their basketball shoes, their Nike Airs and Reebok Pumps, while I strutted around in LA Gears and British Knights.

I entered with a full head of steam, of freedom and opportunity, but quickly became disconcerted by how expensive the shoes really were. I was making $5.50 an hour at Target and each shoe I was interested in seemed to cost a weeks' wage. And though I enjoyed working with Joe, the fat, gay cashier addicted to pills with bleached hair who offered to give me a blow job in the bathroom before I went in for my first interview, I wasn't sure spending it all on shoes was worth it. But as I was about to leave, as I was whispering apologies to my dad for complaining about being forced to choose from the lower racks, from the racks near the back, the racks without a display, I was slapped from behind on the shoulder. And the blow, though slight at best, woke me from my daydream of guilt.

He was a blonde guy about my height at the time, probably 5'9", and wearing the referee uniform of Foot Locker. He had an earring and ring, both silver, which didn't seem to set his confidence back any and though a puka shell necklace was tight against his active Adam's apple, he spoke without impedance.

He asked if he could help. Asked what my name was. What I did. Where I went to school. His girlfriend used to go there. He knew the Target I worked at. Said he stole a video game from there once. Asked me not to tell. He laughed so I laughed. He asked me if I liked something. I did (didn't) and before I knew it I was trying on shoes way out of my price range. Soon after I was agreeing that I didn't want to spend so much money on a nice pair of shoes only to have them ruined on a wet street. So I bought weather protector and as he was adding it all up I agreed I needed new socks--three for a measly twelve dollars, he pointed out.

Upon leaving I took a seat near a large fake plant in a giant terracotta pot. Next to it was a kiosk selling baseball caps.   A young guy with brown spiky hair looked over at me. I must have looked terrified. I must have looked like I lost my house in a game of poker, lost my child to the black market, because my opponent had pocket cowboys.

"Can I help you with anything?" he asked, ball cap in hand.

I looked up wide eyed and out of breath, then fled without answering, nearly forgetting the shoes, and ran all the way to my white Chevy Corsica. When I got inside I wondered how my dad was able to purchase such a mediocre car eight years prior. Not an automatic thing on it. And aside from realizing that I was a weak and pathetic boy, I also realized my dad was a true man. He didn't want to spend a week's wage on heated seats and daytime running lights, on the newest and coolest shoes for my three brothers and I. After all, he still had to buy the milk.

I threw the bag into the backseat and drove off in disgust, vowing to never set foot in a mall again.

That was ten years ago and I've broken that promise time and time again, and time and time again I've spent money on things I didn't actually want.

I have theories as to why I'm like this. The first is founded in guilt. It's based on the fact that these people, these sales people, are just trying to make that money, just trying to pay those bills. When they speak to me, I'm hardly paying any attention because I create whole worlds for them that always include dire financial straits. A world in which the money they'll make on this commission will be able to pay the gas bill and warm their houses for one more desperate week. This is also why when I'm asked upon checking out if anyone helped me I always point someone out even if by some miracle no one actually spoke to me.

Another theory is that I have a subconscious desire for everyone to like me, even complete strangers whose only interaction is script and rhetoric. This causes me to do any number of unnecessary and probably equally unnoticeable actions. When I'm in any store, even those that sell items obscenely out of my price range, I'll still look at things as if I might purchase them. There might not be a soul around, but not to seem poor, to seem undesirable, I'll look a sport coat over, casually regarding the price tag and audibly saying things like not bad while acting as if I'm even at all considering its purchase.

How this acting looks I can only guess. I don't have access to any of the closed circuit cameras, but I believe it usually involves: feeling the fabric, lifting the arms, checking the cuff links, smoothing the inside of the collar, and saying, nice over and over.

In my head I want these people to see me as someone capable of buying such an item but even though I seem to be infatuated with it, I don't. Presumably, I'm interrupted by a phone call and have to leave the store when in actuality I'm talking to a piece of inanimate electronic.

The danger of course is that with such fake interest I risk the chance of a salesperson coming up and speaking to me, which leaves me further in debt than I was moments prior when I didn't feel the need to buy a velveteen suit or cashmere scarf.

When I get home I put the shoes in a closet that's already full of shoes, already full of filling hangers. I go to the bathroom and see that the drawer is full of hair products and hand products. Of sprays and shines, butters and bath salts, never used and never thrown out. I've shaved my head to avoid the uber hip barbershops with their boutique products. I've sewed pockets and safety pinned shirts and shorts to avoid department stores with their endless swarm of complimentary women. And closing the drawer I pray I never come across an equally complimentary prostitute and if so, may she only accept cash, for I'm sick of making that scheming psychologist so rich.

© 2008 Tyke Johnson