A crap kind of consumer

As much as I'd like to preach to all of you my lovely readers about how important it is to be a conscious consumer and how good I am in this respect, I can't do it. Because the ugly truth is that it is not one of my stronger points. Not by far.

In fact, I suck at it. Not the preaching, but the being a conscious anything. I don't ever weigh the pros and cons, instead I jump, I don't think things through, I jump, I don't consider all of the angles, I just jump (Are you getting this: I'm a jumper, and not the woolly kind either). Sometimes, I land somewhat beautifully, or at least with minor scrapes and bruises, and other times I need an ambulance and a heavy sedative. Wine often comes in handy.

However as far as doing any kind of consuming consciously, I reach an even further low, a veritable low to blast all of the other lows to unknown heights.

I realize that many of you might have already deduced this from my desperate need to own an iPhone, getting it, and then spending the following days complaining about it. Especially on Twitter. But what none of you know is what else I managed to procure on that fateful outing.

As it happens, I was seduced by a pair of these:

Why yes, I just propped a pair of wonky shoes on my kitchen counter and posed them for a photo. Doesn't everyone do that?

What are they exactly, other than a pair of rather girlishly (I toned down the colors on the pic, the pink actually is quite garishly pink) colored cross trainers, you might be wondering.

Oh silly, they are Shape-Ups of course. 

You haven't heard of them? Well, neither had I until I spotted them in the shoe store window. They are cross trainers with a curved sole and something else fancy and highly technical going for them. Apparently they promote weight loss, strengthen the back, firm calf and back muscles, reduce cellulite and tone your thighs, increase cardiovascular health, improve posture, reduce stress on knee and ankle joints, vote for you, make world peace happen, and make your farts smell like roses.

Yeah, right, you sigh, and I have to say you might just have a pretty good point there. 

And I can only account for my purchase with the exact same argument I made about the iPhone: "Ooh, shiny."

That is the unconscious part, see.

In the past I have bought things because I loved the color, it sounded cool to own one, it felt good against my cheek, the commercial was really funny, everyone told me I should get one, everyone else had one, and because it came with a free gift. That's it. I really, really suck at being a conscious consumer. 

But I'm trying to be better. I have decided that I'll actually wear these Shape-Ups. I've already worn them to go to golf last Sunday, which involved the walking into the garage while wearing them, sitting in the car while wearing them, and then as the coup de grace: walking around the car in them to get my golf shoes. I was too lazy to change back into them after golf though. I hope that doesn't cancel out my good start. Hmm. 

Now, I have no illusions about these shoes having any effect on weight loss, and I realize that if losing weight ever was a goal of mine I should probably drop the wine and the burgers instead of buying a pair of weirdly colored shoes (and just so that you know: I'm fat. I don't mind it unless I'm on an airplane. I don't think I should lose weight. I'm in 'excellent' health [post pink eye]. And I like myself.), but I figure that I now own these shoes and it can't hurt my posture, or my calf muscles to wear them. And there is that world peace to take into consideration as well...

So what do you think? Should I be in consumer prison for even entertaining 'shiny' as a valid reason for a purchase, or be celebrated for my child-like ability to bypass any common sense and just get things I like?

Let me know. Meanwhile, I'll be in the back yard walking in circles being constantly distracted by the shiny, dangling-carrot-like pink on my shoes. 

I might be gone for days.