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Evening Gown Shopping at the End of the World
With extreme indulgence shopping comes extreme financial risk
Some people have food, and others turn to Netflix, but my comfort binge of choice has always been online shopping. The thrill of the hunt, that electric frisson of discovery, the flop sweat that appears between “Add to cart” and “Thank you for your purchase!” for fear the item’s been stolen out from under you during that moment’s hesitation, followed by the sweet relief of knowing it’s already on its way.
With the arrival of the pandemic, however, my comfort zone of cyber splurging has lost its luster as a reliable pleasure-seeking activity and become a downright chore. This online “me” time has now become merely a default mode of shopping as the pandemic has stretched on and more and more physical stores depressingly go out of business. It’s also no longer a speciality of mine relegated to the occasional splurge, but how literally everything — from bulk toilet paper orders to the latest stack of books I’m “definitely going to read” — finds its way to my apartment. But after almost a year of humdrum, practical online purchasing checkouts, I’ve finally come to the realization of how to reinvigorate my favorite pastime and restore the thrill of retail therapy that’s been lost for far too long.
These are no longer…
